


Good Bait and the Help

by navaan



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Abduction, Action/Adventure, Avengers Vol. 4 (2010), Commander Rogers, Getting Together, Illustrated, Jealous Steve Rogers, Love Confessions, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Mutual Pining, Revelations, Threats of Rape/Non-Con Outside of Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Unrequitted OMC/Tony Stark, creepy villain flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:48:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 38,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21703252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: A new villain is on the scene and he uses stolen tech! There’s the suspicions there’s a huge organization behind this that nobody knew even existed. Commander Rogers wants to know if these suspicions are true and how to stop whoever is behind it. Of course he asks Tony for help. Of course, Tony is happy to help when Steve suggests a trip to MadripoorTony agrees to take Steve with him to another tech convention there, disguised as his bodyguard and lure out the tech-loving villain with a new piece of tech put on display. He didn't expect the bad guy to be drawn to Tony himself rather than his tech.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 59
Kudos: 445
Collections: 2019 Captain America/Iron Man Big Bang





	1. Punching Robots

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2019 Captain America/Iron Man Big Bang. This is one of those things that started as a Bingo Fill and ended up as a Big Bang length fic. ^^ Lots of fun was head in the process.
> 
> Thank you to my fantastic artists Narukyuu and Marumo. 
> 
> Check out the art and leave some nice feedback, please!! ♥
> 
> [ **Art for Cap-IM BB [Team Quebec]**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21699460) (0 words) by [**marumo**](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marumo)
> 
> [ **Art for Good Bait and the Help**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22100092) (0 words) by [**narukyuu**](https://archiveofourown.org/users/narukyuu)

The call came in the middle of an investor’s meeting and Tony accepted Pepper’s stern look when he left the room. It was the second time this month that Avengers business interfered with his work — where Pepper insisted all his focus needed to be until the new company stood on firmer ground.

But even as he excused himself with a business-like smile he could see the glow in their meeting partner’s eyes.

Iron Man’s reputation might not be what it had been before the superhero war and the Skrull invasion, but he knew that being a superhero, one back on the current Avengers roster, still dazzled people. Investors like the potential of access to Stark Resilient tech as much as being associated with an Avenger.

He sprinted to the roof and called up the new bleeding edge armor with nary a thought. The liquid metal encased him and he was in the air before the suit had even finished forming.

“Carol?” he asked, voice carried over the miles by the state-of-the-art Avengers communications hub.

“We’re doing fine so far, Tony,” Carol answered. “Got some unexpected back-up.”

In the background he could hear an explosion go off and he pushed the repulsors to their limits. “JARVIS, flight path.”

The AI answered immediately: “11 minutes till arrival.”

“Can’t we move faster?”

“Stark? You’re online?” Maria Hill, former SHIELD agent and current Avengers liaison, asked over the speakers.

“Yes,” he said curtly. “Online and on my way, Hill. How are we looking?”

“Good, we will need your engineering skills on this one, Stark.”

“So not my brawn?”

“We got brawn,” another voice said in the open channel. “We could use the genius though.”

The voice was unmistakable. Cap.

No.

 _Commander Rogers_. 

It was still hard to think of Steve as anything other than Captain America. 

“Tony? You still there?” Steve said and here was a metallic clang a grunt. Was he on the field alongside the Avengers? Was Steve the back-up Carol had mentioned?

“You have enough brawn? I thought Logan was taking care of some X-Men-related business,” Tony said casually and zoomed out of the flight path of a helicopter before it could even spot him. The armor’s HUD was updating his position on the map constantly. He was homing in on the battle, 8.7 minutes remaining till arrival.. 

“Still, Ms. Marvel and Thor,” Spider-Man quipped, “and two Caps. That’s a lot of brawn to go around already.”

So both Barnes and Steve were with the group.

“I’m too cute to be brawn,” Carol retorted.

“I brought Valkyrie, too” Steve reminded Spider-Man. Despite the casual remark, he sounded a little out of breath. Tony heard a thunk, a crash, then shots fired. Of course, even as Commander Rogers the former Captain America would be right in the middle of the fray. From what Tony had heard, he hadn’t been good at staying behind the desk as Director of SHIELD either.

And it wouldn’t be like Steve to direct others from the sidelines either. When had Captain America ever been able to watch while others did the work?

“Anything I need to know?” Tony asked just as JARVIS announced that they were closing in.

“Giant robot, six arms, uses tech stolen from the think tank robbed a week ago,” a new voice spoke up, and he immediately recognized it as Black Widow’s. “Remind you of something?”

“Six arms? Two more arms than dear Otto?” he asked.”Sounds impractical.”

The soft snort answering him was Spider-Man’s who appreciated Tony making light of one of his most persistent and annoying arch-enemies.

“Do we count mechanical arms only or human arms and mechanical arms?” Clint quipped. “Anyway you look at it, the robot wins.”

“We do not count arms. Focus, team,” Steve ordered. If he was aiming for stern, he was failing. Tony suspected he was enjoying the team spirit a little more than he wanted to admit. To reel the conversation back, he added: “This looks like a Stane design, Tony. Better get here fast.”

“Stane?”

Zeke Stane had been a thorn in Tony’s side for over a year. More than that if you counted the time Tony had lost to self-induced amnesia when he’d deleted his brain after the Skrull debacle had turned public opinion on Tony and led to Norman Osborn replacing him — a desperate move to make sure the names in the superhero registry he’d helped create wouldn’t fall into the hands of a madman. Not all memories were gone, but some of what was left was disconnected, jumbled data that sprung up at inopportune moments to taunt him.

Zeke and the trouble he’d caused — could still cause — was as clear as any other memory that Tony had left. 

“If it were him, he would have called me first,” he joked, but tried to get another surge out of the repulsors.

“We have it,” Carol announced. “Uncrewed. It’s a drone. Remote controlled.”

“... and exploding,” Clint added and he sounded as if he was running. A boom sounded through the open channel.

“JARVIS? Which one was it? Where do we go? Anyone hurt?”

JARVIS answered: “Robot on the 14th floor. West side of the building.” 

“There are two smaller ones on the 11th floor packing a punch,” Captain America added. 

Finally in range, Tony swooped down towards his team. The buildings that had for a time housed the Guard Tronics think tank were in sight; a modern 36 floor office building towering over an old fashioned factory complex. In front of it, Thor and Carol were battling a robot that reached up to the seventh floor. A joke about giant robots destroying cities was on his lips... 

Then an explosion rocked everything and windows shattered, spraying glass in all directions. Captain America jumped head first out of one of the windows, protecting himself with his shield. Spider-Woman was there to catch him easily, long before Tony was within reach.

Another robot had exploded.

That was not a good sign.

“JARVIS, give me something. How many robots are we talking about? Are all of them rigged?”

“Scanning,” the AI informed him.

Getting at least 11 more readings of similar power sources from across the company grounds, he swooped back up in an arc and flew upwards along the glass walls, passing the 27th floor in time for Commander Rogers to burst out of a window, hard-light shield in front of himself for protection. Tony had him by the arm, and pulled him along towards the roof before gravity had so much as made a grab for him.

“Saw me coming?” Steve asked, his arms latching onto Iron Man’s shoulders.

“I’m just passing by,” Tony quipped back, and let Steve go as soon as they had reached the rooftop.

“Good to see you, Iron Man. We weren’t sure you’d be here in time.”

He did not land, but nodded. “I can make short work of these,” he promised. His scans were continuously running. JARVIS kept him informed and he had found a couple of weaknesses in their control grid.

“That’s what I wanted to hear,” Steve said and grinned up at him, deactivating the hard-light shield for the moment. It flickered, destabilizing and vanishing.

Tony made a mental note to look into enhancing that technology as soon as he had a free moment. Losing Cap once had been devastating enough — and Tony had deleted some of the memories from that time, but there was a well hidden corner in his mind where the shock and grief of that moment would forever be electrically engraved. Extremis threw up a triangulation of data broadcast by the remote-controlled robots and Tony took in the information at a glance, while JARVIS said: “Frequency match.” 

Inside the HUD all the dots representing robots flash dark red. 

“Looks like they’re being controlled from the same source.”

“Can you get it down?”

“Depends. I would have to see it up close, see how they run it. Which makes me think, are they being sloppy broadcasting their location, or are they sending me an invitation?”

“You think it’s a trap?”

“Might be,” he told Steve. “I’m still trying to pin down the exact location. There’s no doubt that these drones get their directives from a central control.”

Steve grinned when Tony finally landed beside him on the roof. Flustered, humbled every time Steve showed a sign of easy friendship after everything that had happened between them, Tony was glad for the Iron Man mask hiding his reactions.

It was astonishing that Steve had forgiven Tony, that they were talking again...

In Tony’s mind, with its many holes and months of lost memory, it was even more inconceivable that Tony could have let their disagreement get that far out of hand. But he knew himself, knew his own mind — knew that he wasn’t always rational when it came to Steve.

Since he’d found out about the political current shifting against superheroes he had known he would have tried to stay ahead of it. Analysing the public record of his past actions, he could see his attempts. If he had thought pushing was the only way to keep everyone safe, to keep control of what happened to superheroes, then he would have gone against Steve. It was easier to make Steve doubt him, _hate him_ , than to _lose_ him.

In the end, he’d done both.

Fighting side by side again — it seemed like an impossibility, a miracle granted to him even though he didn’t deserve it.

He carried Steve down to where Carol and Thor were taking apart the robot. A quick scan told him more about the design than he would have liked to know.

“Stolen tech,” he said. “This looks like Stane, because some of his designs went in there. But there’s more.”

“More?” Steve looked at him sideways. As Commander he had access to all their files. Every fight or mission report that got logged into the Avengers database, every conflict SHIELD kept an eye on — it all landed on Steve’s proverbial desk. Even though Tony doubted Steve spent much time at a desk, he knew Steve would have the relevant data.

“Someone took scraps and built the bot out of them. Built something very sophisticated, too, if I do say so.”

“Like Stane.”

Steve knew, of course, that Zeke had used stolen Stark tech before.

“Yeah, whoever did this, they stole from everyone including Stane and Hammer.” He pulled up a close-up for part of the robot’s casing and then looked more closely at the metal alloy. “Reed will want to know that some of his knowledge went in there along with mine.”

The most notable piece — the energy core — had the old Stark Industries logotype stamped on it. It was faded, half mangled where parts had been fused. Whoever had done this had stolen specs, had developed them into something new. Why not adapt the energy core too? A sophisticated power cell would have made the whole design better, less vulnerable. 

And, yet, whoever had built this had decided to use the piece as is, obvious and glaring.

Stane would have done it to implicate Tony, make sure his reputation suffered.

This?

Nobody would pin this one on Tony.

Someone had left an obvious mark for him.

With his armored hands, he broke open the chestplate to get at the energy core, aware that Steve was standing right behind him watching.

“A message?” he asked when he noticed the logo.

Tony let his armored fingers glide over it in contemplation. Then he shrugged. “You think this is the message and not the seven remote-controlled robots?”

They grinned at each other.

“Can you stop them?”

“Not yet,” Tony admitted, “but I can scramble the signal that’s controlling them.”

“Please,” Steve said, urging him with an open ended gesture. “I’m sure we’d all enjoy the training session a lot more without the property damage and the danger of people getting hurt.”

“It’s his way of letting you know we need more training robots,” Carol remarked. 

“He commands the world’s foremost intelligence agency. He can order LMDs if he needs them.” Tony remembered SHIELD training facilities as being as well equipped as you’d expect. The Avengers had access to anything Tony could make available and despite having to build up from the ground yet again, he had found the funds to give them a new generation of training robots that could last a few rounds with Carol and Thor. Not all of it was accepted graciously these days. Some people liked to remind him that just a while back he had used much of his tech to take down superheroes who disagreed with superhero registration. As far as Tony knew, Steve had only been to the new training room once in recent weeks — to spar with his old friend and successor in the red, white and blue, James Barnes.

“I can also just use the Avengers training room,” Steve quipped. “Technically I am your boss.”

“It has better equipment anyway,” Tony said. He suspected he’d upgraded some of the SHIELD equipment in his time as Director of SHIELD. There were notes in his database and he’d kept all the specs. “I did change the override code last week though.”

“I noticed,” Clint’s surly voice said over the comms. “Failed to hand it to me.”

“I got in,” Steve said and chuckled, making Tony wonder if he’d been by again recently without Tony’s knowledge. Currently he was based in Seattle, focused on establishing his new company. Had Steve been around more because Tony had been absent?

“Please, we all know Tony gives you _all_ his override passwords.” Carol grinning, but then gave Tony a long and thoughtful look that made him wonder how many conversations with her he had forgotten. But if there was anyone he would have shared the depth of his struggles with while Steve was dead, he supposed Carol was the obvious choice.

When Tony turned back to Steve, Steve was watching him with a look that had nothing on Carol. 

Sometimes he was glad he was wearing armor.

It had done a decent job to hide his identity for a long time and now the mask hid his emotions at times like these, when he wasn’t quite sure his poker face would fool the people who knew him best.

He shifted a bit under Steve’s heavy gaze. They had done so much to close the rift between them; Tony didn’t think it was the right time to let his complicated feelings for Steve complicate an already overly-complicated friendship now. 

_Come on, I’ve felt like this from the start. Steve doesn’t have to find out. He doesn’t feel the same way. Why would he? I was never good enough to live up to this friendship. Now I’ll forever be the one whose actions put his dead body on those courthouse steps. That he speaks to me is more than I could have ever asked for._

“We have four more of the bogey-robots on the south side of the facility. They’ve started to move towards the city. Someone know how to stop them before more arrive?” Barnes spoke up matter-of-factly, the way Steve always had when he’d been the one in the uniform. James Barnes was his own man, but he had worked with Captain America long before the legend had woken from the ice and met the Avengers. Recently, he had tensely told Tony that Tony had been the one to hand Steve’s shield to him. Despite their conflict, Steve had given him a final task.

Tony wasn’t surprised he’d done what had been asked of him. He could easily imagine what had been going through his mind: He’d failed Steve. He’d lost Steve. Of course he would have tried to honor his memory, make sure his legacy lived on.

“You were a mess,” Barnes had informed him, not a hint of regret in his voice. “To be honest, I had come to kill you.”

Tony had nodded in answer. He would have blamed himself too. He probably had. Had he expected Barnes — then the Winter Soldier — to kill him? 

Instead, somehow, they had both put Steve’s legacy above the conflict, above the grief and their need for revenge.

These days, they were even on the same team and working together well. 

Steve was still studying Tony in his Iron Man armor. “Tony? Can you figure out where they are going? How to stop them?”

“We already know how to stop them,” Thor said, swinging his hammer, ready to set off and fly away. Carol nodded, launching herself up into the air beside him. 

“We’ll take care of this. Make sure you stop whoever is sending out more and more of these things.”

“Tony?” Steve asked again. 

“I have a location,” Tony shot back. The triangulation had been running quietly in the background while he’d gathered more data here. “I think I can shut down the source.”

“Far away?”

He shook his head. 

“Outside the city perimeter, it’ll be a short flight.”

“I’ll go with you,” Steve said and added, as if he expected disagreement from Tony: “That’s an order. Avengers, keep us in the loop. Iron Man and I are taking the puppeteer.”

Tony held out an arm, offering Steve the lift that he had more or less _requested_. Since their little Asgardian adventure, they had shared the battlefield, the Tower kitchen and the occasional meeting room. They hadn’t had any reason to work together like this without another Avenger along for the ride, though.

It was good that Steve couldn’t see him nervously fidget in the armor. It wasn’t like they were off to a date in school night. They were still on a mission. Steve was here and he wanted Tony to have back-up — perhaps because he still expected Stane or another of Tony’s enemies to be behind the scheme.

Steve stepped right into Iron Man’s space and let himself be swooped up and away, held in place by one metal arm slung around his hip. He held onto Tony’s shoulder with both hands, and Tony let Extremis run through the calculations, help him keep the balance with the added weight plastered to his side.

“You know the heading?” Steve confirmed. He wasn’t doubting Tony, just making sure there wasn’t anything else he needed.

“I know where to look,” he answered and chose a straight flight path towards the source of the signal. 

He took them higher to survey the perimeter.

“I missed this,” Steve said.

“Fighting robots?” Tony asked, distracted by too many readings processing at once.

“Flying with you.”

 _Oh._ Tony blinked and lost the train of thought he’d been following. “You own a flying car,” he said to stunned to think about the gruffness of his reply. Of course, he had missed _this_ too. Futurist that he was, he didn’t get hung up on the past when he could see a way forward, and yet he _missed_ Steve, the old times, living in Avengers Mansion together. Perhaps he was getting old but sometimes he wished there was a way to go back to the way things had been. Simpler times.

“Technically,” Steve said, grinning, “SHIELD does. And this is different, Tony.”

Different.

Steve emphasized it as if it meant _special_.

Tony knew for a fact that Iron Man wasn’t the only hero who offered Steve side-along rides. It happened often – in fights, in an emergency, sometimes because they had to relocate their team barbecue due to sudden rain. Falcon must have picked Steve up and flown him wherever they were needed at least as often as Iron Man had.

Yet the trust placed in him had always meant something special to Tony. He had always readily offered a lift to Cap, because it was _Steve_ he was offering it to. Because their friendship, their partnership… It had always mattered.

Steve _mattered_.

Had Steve felt it was part of their routine? That it was special?

Tony wanted to ask, but he resisted the urge. 

They had arrived.

“An old warehouse,” Tony remarked while he set them down close by. “How incredibly original.”

“Right,” Steve said. The twinkle in his eye, the grin, gave way to professionalism.

It was still strange to see him walk into a fight without the cowl covering his features, but Tony had to admit, the new uniform suited him.

“Anything we need to know, Tony?”

His scans were, of course, already in progress. 

“No life signs,” he announced. “The building is drawing a huge amount of energy from the city’s powergrid, though.”

“Not abandoned then,” Steve concluded and nodded at him. “Life signs could be masked?”

“That would need sophisticated tech,” Tony pointed out. He’d had a brief and inconvenient brush with Ghost recently, who had for a few minutes managed to fool his scanners. “Even if they stole the right tech and are that smart, they can’t hold it up indefinitely.”

“Let’s tread lightly anyway.” Steve made his way slowly towards the side of the building and motioned for Tony to lead the way. “If it’s a trap then let's draw them out.”

Trusting in his own technology, Tony moved to the front of the warehouse and pushed the door out of its hinges with one punch of his iron clad fist.

“Oops,” he said, before the door hit a wall inside and fell to the floor with a resounding bang. He switched to internal communications and told Steve: “We have appropriately announced ourselves. Nothing’s moving. Scanner still says it’s empty.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way,” Steve replied, speaking into his transmitter but peering at Tony from where he was.

In the armor, Tony made for the sturdier target. He walked inside ahead of Steve.

Nothing.

“JARVIS? How are we looking?”

“No life signs,” the AI informed him.

The warehouse was empty, but for one huge construction in the middle of the vacant space. Even before the scanners confirmed it Tony knew they had found what they were looking for. “Control Center, check,” he said out loud.

The hulking mass of it was the size of tank that instead of a gun, supported a directive array of the kind that Tony would have been able to build when he was 16. It didn’t look elaborate at first glance. Dirty beige canvas covered a third of its base, right where you’d expect the manual controls to be. If someone had been here in the last few minutes they had covered their tracks and made sure the panels didn’t get wet. It implied that this wasn’t the best location for the machine, but the best location they’d had to work with.

Steve typed something on his wrist computer. “We’ll know who owns this warehouse in a moment,” he said. 

Hill or SHIELD would get them the information.

Tony could have gotten to it faster, but this way the appropriate chain of command was observed.

Steve approached from the side to look at the set-up.

“Can you disable it? Blast it to shreds?”

“Oh, that’s always an option. Depends on how much of it we need intact to find out where to look for the people who built it.” Tony was running scans as he spoke, hoping they would give him a better understanding of the set-up. “But maybe not a good idea. It’s rigged with explosives, even though it wasn’t done with the same expertise they’ve shown in everything else.”

He took a step forward. A hand landed on his shoulder, not pushing hard enough to hold back Iron Man, but he stopped anyway, looking at Steve to confirm what it was he wanted.

“Who is controlling control, yes. That’s what we need to know. Any cameras?”

“The sweep of the room showed no…” he started to answer, then stopped as he pulled up the feed for review. There was something moving above them.

“Tony?”

He pointed, not caring that the gesture would be recorded.

A drone the size of a fist was hovering above them.

He hadn’t missed it the first time. 

It hadn’t been there when he’d scanned.

“Where did it come from?” Tony asked into the HUD.

“Broken window, upper floor, east,” JARVIS suggested.

Tony looked briefly at the data JARVIS pulled up to show him the energy trail.

“Has it been following us?”

He knew Steve was listening closely.

“Since we arrived at the scene,” JARVIS informed them. “Similar energy signatures were detected all over the scene.”

The AI showed Tony the different energy trails overlying map to indicate the movements of similar drones. The had detected at least four.

“Someone was recording the fight?” Steve’s face darkened visibly. 

When your adversaries were _letting_ you solve problems or fight yourself out of situations, it was never a good sign. Was someone getting their kicks out of this? Were they analyzing strategy? Were they causing messes to distract the Avengers by keeping them here?

One way to find out. 

The little drone would be faster than him through sheer maneuverability, but he wouldn’t be Iron Man if he didn’t have a few tricks up his sleeve. He took two steps without lifting off the ground to observe what it would do. The little device shifted up and to the side, staying in a corner — out of reach and getting the best angle of the room.

“This would have been so much easier with Extremis fully functional.” He could have hacked it on the spot, directed it to land. With his mind he nudged Extremis and it reached out beyond the gap, still part of Tony, but he could already feel a headache coming along with it. Since the Skrull had infected him with a virus to shut down his hold on Extremis he hadn’t been able to use it as freely as before. He was still working on getting back to full form.

“At least,” Steve said, expression hardening at the mention of Extremis, “we know they haven’t stolen SHIELD tech or they would have fly-sized spy drones.”

“I would have spotted it anyway,” Tony huffed and turned to Steve as if he was ignoring the drone. “I fear we’re not far away from people like this getting their hand on micro air vehicles and nanotechnology.” Tony’s greatest fear of the moment was that someone could get to Extremis — build the kind of soldiers with it that Maya had intended or use it to control him.

Steve narrowed his eyes.

Repulsors had Tony in the air the next second. He wasn’t trying to make a grab for the drone at all, but it tried to avoid him just as he expected. He sent one EMP pulse right into its projected flight path and then watched with satisfaction as it fell, hit the ground and bounced and rolled until it landed at Steve’s feet.

“Gotcha,” Tony said softly and bent over to pick it up.

“Tony,” Steve warned and his hardlight shield sprang to light with a quiet noise. Only then did a new energy signature spring up in front of his eyes. The canvas moved and a robot sat up like Frankenstein's monster come to life.

“Why didn’t we see that?” he asked JARVIS, although he was blaming himself and Extremis for missing something so glaringly obvious.

“The canvas is made of fibre that masked the circuitry,” JARVIS informed him.

“How lovely,” he returned. “I want that. I could be the new Ghost.”

The robot was at least Hulk-sized and that was just when sitting. 

“Robot and explosives,” Steve noted. “Nice combination.”

Tony rolled the small surveillance drone to the side. One problem at a time. 

Over the comms Spider-Woman said: “Guys, wasn’t Stark going to shut these down? It looks like there are new ones popping up.”

“Cap? Tony? You doing okay?” Carol asked. “Our robot plague has multiplied exponentially.”

No wonder. His HUD flashed new readings at him. The control grid was sending out new commands in quick succession. Now that the canvas had been pulled, Tony could see red and yellow lights blinking on a console there.

The robot got to its feet and positioned itself right in front of the array.

Tony looked at Steve to see what he made of all this. Calmly looking back at him, Steve reached up to push the device in his ear and speak to everyone. “Things are under control here. We will shut the control panel momentarily, stand by.”

Then Steve let his hand sink from his ear, raised the hardlight shield in front of himself and then and proposed: “Get to the controls. I’ll keep it occupied.”

“So, I get the explosives, huh?” Tony asked

“Problem?” The right corner of Steve’s lips lifted in a half-smile.

JARVIS interjected: “Chances of diffusion 98%.” 

“No problem,” Tony reassured him.

No sound or movement from the robot triggered them, but they both shot forward at the same time, moving in remembered synchronisation. They’d fought like this many times before, they’d trained similarly even more often, and despite everything they still knew the other’s moves and techniques as well as their own.

Tony blasted the robot right in its metallic head and then swooped around to grab it before it could land a punch. For a moment he held it in a sort of headlock, then it tried to wrench free and throw him, but he leaned into it and fired the repulsors to push it off balance. That was when Steve jumped up to land a few punches to the less protected parts of the machine.

Watching Steve thrash the robot, pushing it back and away from the controls, he knew what he had to do.

With one repulsor supported jump he was in front of the controls.

He took a split second to survey what was in front of him and check it against the specs his scans had suggested.

Lights flashed at him.

An old fashioned keyboard was fitted into a mess of cables.

Whoever had built this hadn’t had much time to spare.

From the looks of it the thing had been put together from scraps here in the warehouse. Stolen scraps. Like with the robot he’d seen up close, Tony recognized some of these parts instantly, and not just because they had the word “Stark” written on them. SHIELD equipment, US army tech, Stark tech, Banetronics — those were just the things he was sure he could recognize at a glance. 

Someone was collecting whatever became available. 

The design was haphazardly put together. You didn’t need to be a genius to build it either. An expert with some help could do it. Former military? Partisans? 

Tony was running through a list of options.

The control panels flashed at him: “UNAUTHORIZED.”

“Yeah, yeah, right back at you.”

He pulled back the armor, liquid metal leaving his fingers free to glide over the keyboard without restriction. At the same time he let JARVIS check for ports. They were going to crack this thing open before it could cause damage.

Behind him he heard Steve grunt. Then metal screeched.

He was tempted to look, make sure Steve was alright, but the clock was ticking. If he didn't do something fast, then the warehouse would explode. 

Something about that didn't make sense though. The explosives had been set up to kill whoever tried to stop the array, but it would stop all drones at once, too. Either the person behind this hoped to force a hero to lay down his life or or the point of the explosives was to wipe all traces. And yet, Tony had already seen enough of the stolen tech to investigate.

“JARVIS,” he said, “pull all data you can get. I want to know who set this up, who programmed it, who they stole the software from, everything. Especially how and where they got their hands on Stark Industries tech.”

“Confirmed.”

The little screen in front of him flashed: “SELF-DESTRUCTION SEQUENCE INITIATED.”

He hadn't triggered it. 

“Remote-control,” he muttered.

A crash sounded through the warehouse. Steve gasped in pain.

Tony forced himself not to look. Numbers were counting down and he knew he had to stop it now. 

Over the comms, Spider-Man shouted: “ How many more of these are there?”

The sound of sizzling thunder and lightning ended the transmission. Clearly, there were soon to be a lot less; the situation still sounded fairly under control.

Reaching out with Extremis, Tony felt his way forward until the firewalls snapped up. He focused, tried so make Extremis whisper to him the way it had when he’d first injected himself with it. It wasn’t as easy as it had been then but he could still make it work. 

He pushed.

Pain nearly made him double over.

The migraine he’d get from this would last for days.

But he didn’t back down.

“Think you’re smart,” he muttered, thinking up code as fast as the array’s defenses snapped up.

For a moment he lost himself. Nothing around him was real. There was only him and the labyrinth of code, racing against the clock. 

Then he reached through, grabbed on, and knew he had found where all the trails were leading him: Command center. He crushed it, scrambled it.

In front of his eyes the numbers stopped counting down at 12. Behind him another crash made the floor shake beneath his feet.

Then he saw stars, grasping onto the console to make sure he wouldn’t topple over.

His ears were ringing but not from the sound, just from the splitting headache. 

Somewhere he heard annoyingly loud cheering that screeched into static, then he lost track of all thoughts in a crescendo of stabbing pain. 

The next timestamp told him he’d lost nearly a minute.

“Tony? Tony, are you alright?”

The voice led him back to himself, helped him to ground himself and open his eyes again. He felt weak in the knees and sick to the stomach — the way he felt during a bad migraine, right before its peak.

Even the dim light of this warehouse was too much.

“I’m alright,” he lied.

Steve had reached him. A bruise on his cheek told the story of how hard he must have fought to keep the robot away from the control mechanism. “You weren’t moving,” he explained his worry.

Once more, Tony was glad for the mask. His heart was beating fast, and he _had_ blacked out for a moment.

Peeking over his shoulder, Tony realized the robot guard had crashed backwards and was sprawled on the floor. “You got him?”

“ _You_ got him,” Steve said. “He just stopped. And I can tell you he wasn’t going to stop on his own.” He touched the bruise on his face and winced.

“Everyone else?”

“Fine.” Steve patted his shoulder as if he could feel it — the way he’d always done, treating Iron Man just like one of the team. “The robots all stopped at the same time. You did it.”

Tony let the helmet bleed away to show Steve his tired smile. “It wasn’t too hard. They had better countermeasures than I would have expected with this,” he said, “but nothing that SHIELD couldn’t have stopped.” In the back of his mind he thought, _I have to run an in depth diagnostic later. Something there gave me a moment of trouble and I do not want a repeat of that._

Steve nodded and pointed at the robot guard. “You’ll be wanting to look at what tech went into the design.”

Oh, yes, he did. 

“Any idea what the point of all this was — what were they trying to get from the think tank? Why branch out when the Avengers were already on the scene?”

Steve followed him over and watched him lean down to take a closer look at the robot, peer over at the “canvas”. 

“I don’t know what this was or who was behind it. Too sloppy for AIM, too subtle for Doom, too unfocused for anyone else I can think of,” he said.

“Brand new,” Tony suggested and pushed open the robot’s chest piece to get at the intricate electronics behind. 

“Just what I needed,” Steve quipped, as if he thought it was just the beginning of their troubles.


	2. Good Bait Catches Fine Fish

By the time Steve appeared in the door of the Avengers meeting room, Tony hadn’t exactly _forgotten_ about their paradoxical new tech villain, but it had been pushed to the back of his mind. 

For a while he had looked into any organizations that might have broken away from AIM, and he’d even looked into anyone working with the Maggia. Meanwhile, Reed Richards had looked into the data Tony had been able to give him. That some knowledge that had gone into the robots had likely come from the Baxter Building had worried them both, but after some consideration Reed had deemed it likely that whoever had stolen specs had stolen them from Doom. “And that he keeps too close an eye on what I and my family are doing is a whole different problem,” Reed had explained and closed the matter. And then life and Resilient and the Hammer and Stane headaches had caught up with him.

But now Steve was leaning against the wall beside the two-winged meeting room door, arms folded, watching the Avengers wrap up their meeting, and Tony realized that he hadn’t seen or heard from Steve since the incident. 

_Why would you be on his priority list? He’s probably here for Barnes. A talk between Caps._

Had Steve and his team found the tech thief by now?

Hill wrapped up the meeting with an, “Alright people, that’s it for today. Get some of Stark’s overpriced coffee and then hop off to whatever you super people do in your free time.”

“Working,” Spider-Man said and it was always amusing to see the emotions on his masked face come through clearly. He was obviously raising an eyebrow at Hill’s flippancy. “What? Do none of you guys work?”

Thor shrugged as if he’d never heard the word, though Tony knew being the glorious son of Asgard was harder work than most. 

“I do,” Tony said, “and I have to get back to it.”

From the corner of his eyes, he could see Barnes speaking to Steve. He had hoped at least catch Steve for a moment before he left, but he also didn't want to interrupt. He got up from the table, waved to the team, then nodded amiably at Steve and Barnes as he was making his way out.

“Tony, wait, I was hoping to speak with you,” Steve called and pushed himself away from the wall.

He matched Tony’s strides and followed him into the hallway. 

“I was about to head back to Seattle, but it’s not urgent.” The quickness made him sound like a needy idiot. _Look at that, Cap spares you a minute and you wag your tail._

“Building the new company keeps you occupied though?” Steve asked. “Bad time for you to go on vacation.”

“Vacation?” Tony returned, laughing. “Rarely a good time for vacation. Sometimes you have to make time for it. Even then I manage to pick the places that errupt into chaos.”

Briefly he got a glimpse of surprise, then Steve’s wry smile was back: “Never easy to take time off and not be a hero, yeah. When was it ever?”

“We were never good at that, you and me.” He thought with envy of the few Avengers who had managed to balance their down-time better. There weren’t many.

“Something always comes up, doesn’t it?”

“It usually does. And we don’t like sitting around when it doesn’t.”

“True,” Steve admitted. He motioned to the smaller meeting room at the end of the hallway and Tony didn’t question him, simply walked in. “We should both take a break once in a while though. One where neither of us is dead or in a coma.”

He wasn’t imagining the roughness in the last bit.

Uncomfortably aware that this was the first time Steve had brought up his death and Tony’s near fatality directly, and still feeling completely unprepared to talk about it, Tony nodded and said softly: “We’re both good at soldiering on.”

“Let’s do that,” Steve said.

“Do what?”

“Take a vacation. We used to meet up for fun too.”

 _Back before my machinations killed you?_ Tony thought bitterly and nodded. He leaned against the table, waiting for Steve to get to the real topic of their talk. 

Steve closed the door behind himself, then paused to give Tony a once over and a thoughtful look. “We haven’t had much time for anything except business.”

“Avengers business, though,” Tony pointed out. For both of them the team in all its iterations had always meant so much more than work and hero business. 

Their eyes met and while neither of them smiled, the look they exchanged took Tony back to the days when things had been simpler. Then they shared a true smile, one of the friendly ones that made Tony giddy with happiness, one of the smiles that meant Steve could ask anything of him…

“What did you want to talk about?” He asked before he could get too comfortable.

Steve straightened his shoulders and the smile gave way to his serious on-the-job expression so quickly that Tony wanted to chase it. “Remember the robot drones?” 

“Hard to forget despite all the crazy stuff that keeps happening.”

Half-nodding his agreement, Steve folded his arms and nodded. “It wasn’t the only incident that‘s why me and… the others were…”

“You mean you and your super-secret team of special ops Avengers that nobody’s supposed to know about?“

Steve‘s lips quirked up and he half-winced. He had probably know they were onto them.

There was only so much you could hide in a community of people who knew secrets and each other a little too well. _Tony_ was at times hyper-aware of it.

“We‘re all Avengers here,” Tony pointed out. “We noticed the sudden peak in team-ups. Not like anyone else will think about it twice.”

“I hope not. How did Nick do this all these years?”

“You know him. He lives the secrets in spy work.”

“How did you do it?”

There was the knife, hovering right over his throat, threatening to cut deeply. “Not well, from what people tell me.”

“People don’t tell me.”

“Give it time, and Natasha might. But generally, Steve, people respect you. You’re a better fit than I ever was.”

Steve nodded, looked him straight in the eye, and Tony braced himself for the gruff unfriendliness that he was courting — despite his best intentions to stay on Steve’s good side until he really had reason to challenge the current status quo. “I need your help with this.”

They were back on topic. “The tech thief?”

“Thieves from what we think we know. It’s an organization. We have traced back three other incidents from before the robot-attack that can be attributed to them.”

“That’s why you were there? You expected something?”

“Not something of this scale. Something that would give us a substantial lead, yes.”

“You think this was them sending a message?”

“You think they upped their game because we went looking? Yes, seems like they were telling us, ‘we know you’re watching, this is what can do when cornered’.”

Tony considered this. “What do you know? Who are they?”

“From what we know they must have been in operation for years, always managing to stay under the radar.”

“Not looking for world domination? Not trying to put superheroes on the spot? What changed, then?” 

Pulling something from his pocket and sliding it over the table to Tony, he said: “We don’t know. That we’re looking into them could have stirred something up.”

On the table between them lay a data stick. Was Steve offering what data they had?

“Battle for leadership? Maybe someone pushing for a new MO,” Tony suggested and picked up the stick. He was tempted to let the armor read it right now, but he wanted to hear what Steve’s assessment was before he dove into it.

“It’s hard to tell, but unlikely. From what little we know the organization has been built by someone who simply calls himself ‘The Law’.”

“Very original.”

“We thought it was just what his people referred to him for the longest time. But it’s smart if you think about it. In what little communication we can trace to them the organization is strictly called ORGANIZATION and their leader LAW. It becomes hard to trace because you can’t assess when a small town thug is just referring to the police or justice system, since organization could mean anything from a non-profit to HYDRA. It’s all contextual and hard to pick out…”

“Smart,” Tony admitted. “Not the first time organized crime has used innocuous code, but that must be a headache to flag in surveillance tapes.”

“Not the first time, no, and we _are_ onto them now. It’s become easier to trace their messages back to their source, but that’s where we come up empty.”

“Okay,” Tony said, wondering what exactly Steve wanted from him here. Was there another masterplan to send drones? Did Steve and his people want him to find a backdoor into the organization’s tech? He hadn’t explained yet what he needed from Tony. “So, what do you need? Give me a run-down of what we know about this boss guy? Lady? Do we know that? Justice? I’d lean towards a beautiful lady. With a name like Law? No idea.”

“ _He_ does send different people out to talk to the cell leaders, so some think he’s male, some think he’s female. We have reason to believe he’s male, since Natasha managed to get it out of one of the go betweens.”

Tony nodded. He was still waiting for anything that was relevant to Iron Man to pop up in conversation. Had the organization targeted more old Stark Industries assets?

Steve held up his arm and from the wristband generator that could also form the hardlight shield, a cone of light sprang up, projecting the image of a tall woman with black hair. She was tall and dressed in traditional Chinese dress that at first made Tony’s thoughts jump uncomfortably towards the Mandarin. Something in recent events with Stane and the Hammer women had led all his suspicions back to his old enemy. “This is Yvonne Xiu. She’s been our main suspect for a couple of months. According to the go-between Natasha got to, Xiu is one of the few people who know who the boss is.”

“So they do have an outside face? For what?”

“She has been recruiting clients. Turns out their main business isn’t the stolen tech. That makes her no different from any other of the organizations go-betweens. What makes her different is her connection to the person who leads this organization.”

Sliding the data stick between his fingers and wondering exactly what was on it, Tony asked: “What is then? What is their main objective?”

 _And what will my role in this be if it isn’t?_ he asked himself.

“For years the Organization has offered clean-up as a service. Someone runs a con, a robbery goes bad, a mafia boss finds himself in over his head: SHIELD is on the scene, Avengers or superheroes might be on the tail. Whatever it is they got involved in, it’s too hot. The Organization swoops in, gathers all pieces of evidence, makes sure nobody ever learns of it, no traces left for the authorities or heroes to find. They take the leftover loot, they make sure it’s stored, fenced or otherwise untraceable, they make sure witnesses know what to say in the right places, they make sure the people who need to be taken out of the line of fire are set on an early retirement plan and are out of the business.”

Tony let that sink in. Until now he had hoped they were dealing with their usual tech fences. This sounded more like well oiled mafia machine with enforcers. “Are we talking dead or whisked away to live out their remaining days in peace under a new name?”

Steve shrugged but his expression was grave. “Might be either, Tony. Sometimes one, sometimes the other, I would guess. Like I told you we know very little. We can trace a few cases and in none of them the person they were supposed to spirit away were ever heard from again.”

“Hits?”

“As far as we can tell in one out of the five cases we know of the person had to be put away for the safety of the Organization. There’s no telling what happened to them. One day they go to work, never return. No leads. And law enforcement didn’t know what to look for, so they didn’t look to deeply. Now the trail’s cold. Everyone else _asked_ for help in getting away. Either they had fallen out with their own people, had run into trouble with the wrong agency or wanted out of the game. We guess they are still alive.”

“Guess. For an organization that stayed under the radar for that long it sounds like they’ve been in the thick of things all along? Committing hits, even? Kidnapping? And we didn’t know? Nobody did? FBI? CIA? SWORD? Osborn? Our Skrull invaders? SHIELD?”

Was this why Steve had called him? To let him see what Tony hadn’t noticed when _he_ had been the one in charge? No, that wouldn’t be Steve’s style. If Steve wanted you to feel responsible for something you had done, then he would come right out and say it.

But had Tony failed to notice something of this magnitude? Had he been driven to the edge to the point where he hadn’t been able to micro or macro manage successfully? A sickening feeling flooded through him. What if he hadn’t noticed? What if this had been going on — like the Skrull invasion — right under his nose and he hadn’t noticed? Too distracted, too focused on keeping things together, too focused on the grief that must have been part of his every waking hour — had he missed another shadow swooping in and festering? Had he missed his own tech being used for nefarious deeds yet again?

“It’s true, we know very little and they made it a point to stay away from the kind of business that could bring them to our attention. Our estimation is they started small. Offering the odd criminal who got into trouble a way to vanish for a cut of their spoils. People had to pay their way in — and they did, bringing cash, and stolen goods. It grew into a clean-up operation from there, only revealed to the right kind of people and staying out of the way of other organizations. But about three or four years ago they started to get a taste for tech.”

“Something _has_ changed. Is that where I come in?”

“That’s where they started to _look_ for tech more actively. The boss started a collection.”

In Tony’s mind Steve would always be Captain America, and he knew from experience that you could get Captain America to show emotions, you could make him flustered, you found him sulking around the house when something had gotten to him. He was not someone you saw fidget very often.

Which is why he did a double take when Steve looked to the side and _fidgeted_ just briefly before his posture turned back to full on Commander Rogers. He nodded. 

“When I say this syndicate likes tech…”

“... then you mean Stark tech.”

Steve nodded slowly. “Not only Stark tech, but the organization favors the jobs that are paid in bits and pieces of your tech. Have you seen what they put into their robots? Into every robot?”

Tony winced. “I knew there was a black market that went far and beyond what my files where telling me but that someone is using my technology as currency is more than a little worrying. Of course, I want it stopped. What can I do to help you?”

There was no question from Steve’s side about the files Tony was keeping and no remark on the worry. He simply nodded. “I knew you would want to know about it and I… had hoped… you would want in on this.”

Hesitation crept in again.

This time Tony had an idea what Steve was going to say and, stunned, he waited for it to be actually spoken before getting his hopes up.

“We need to get to the heart of this Tony. I think it would be good if you worked with me on that.”

He said,”yes,” without even thinking about it. It sounded loud and abrupt in the living room and he felt foolish. Then he met Steve’s worried gaze and asked more calmly: “What do you need from me?”

“I hoped we could devise a plan to lure this Mrs. Xiu out. I need a way to make her interested. Something to get close to her. Find out if she is what she seems to be, test your theory. She’s our best lead to find the one they call ‘Law.’ Any ideas?”

Tony nodded. “I can come up with something. You want them to come for loot?”

“Will it be a problem?”

The serious note gave Tony pause. He looked up. “To work together? No, of course not.”

He wasn’t the one who should have a problem here.

Steve smiled his softer half-smile. “I know that. I mean will it interfere with your work to help on this? I know you have your own problems to sort out and a company to build. You’re busy.”

He smiled back, his own self-deprecating half-smile. “Have you ever known me to take things one at a time, Steve?”

“No,” Steve returned immediately. Whether he was relieved that Tony had agreed to his suggestion easily or worried that Tony was taking on too much wasn’t quite clear. 

“I will give this a look and we’ll talk?” 

“I’ll come to Seattle when you're up to speed,” Steve agreed as fast as Tony had agreed to working together. 

It would be the first time for Commander Rogers to set foot into Tony’s new home or company. The paranoid part of Tony’s brain wonderd if Steve wanted a closer look. Was Tony under observation? He shrugged it off, nodded: “Drop in tomorrow. I’m sure I can think something up by then. We need something shiny, interesting, but preferably not dangerous? Something a nefarious crime syndicate could use? The new Stark Phone model is not going to do it, right?”

He would come up with something and then explain to Pepper why a) he was going to be occupied with Avengers work and why b) he was going to give away an idea for free that Resilient could have used at a later time. Pepper was going to strangle him, but sometimes world-saving business just took precedence. Especially if more than one criminal was using technology Tony had developed and it could spell trouble for all of them. What would investors say if the name Stark got dropped in connection to more high profile terror attacks or robot attacks? 

Even Pepper would agree it was in their best interest to cut this off before it got out of hand.

And she would only squint at him with an all too knowing smile for less than a day, when she found out he was doing this because the former Captain America had asked him to.

* * *

Not even twenty four hours later, Steve was in full uniform and he looked out of place in Tony’s new and so far relatively unused living room with the huge corner sofa and the windows to all sides to listen to what Tony had to say. “Is this secure?” he asked.

Tony rolled his eyes. He had walked upstairs from the workshop as soon as JARVIS had announced a flying car closing in on the perimeter, dressed in a rumpled and now dirty business suit that he’d been wearing for his meetings at Resilient that day. 

“The windows? You know who built the tower, right? You were never worried in the Tower?”

“Do you want me to count how many times we had to rebuild the Tower?” Steve grinned.

Did it warm his heart that Steve was _teasing him_ or that he said “we” as he had been so many times when they’d discussed the Avengers and their “home”?

“Ouch,” Tony said and put a hand over his heart as if he’d been dealt a heavy blow. “It’s not like we’re not making us targets all the time and with more than on Avenger living there, I think it’s still as secure as I’ll ever get it.”

Steve grinned wider and surveyed the garden visible on the other side of the windows. In the darkness there wasn’t much to see and to be honest Tony hadn’t put much thought into what to do with it yet. He’d always loved the park around the mansion and he’d been thinking of this as is own little recreational space. But he would have to pull in a gardener. Something he hadn’t gotten around to yet. Tony wondered what it was Steve was seeing when he looked at the unkempt trees and wild hedges. A good way for people to sneak up on the house? “I know. I take it that means you've made your new home as secure as possible. Seeing as you are a high-profile target.”

He rolled his eyes. “Really? Are you here to get a run-down on my personal security? Professional or personal interest?”

Steve shrugged and turned away from the window. “Both. I was hoping to ship back the armors that are in custody at SHIELD.”

He had tried to get those back since he’d woken from his coma, not sure yet how far he could go under current circumstances to get them. He hadn’t realized that Steve’s influence went that far already. Not that he would have dared ask him for help on this.

“That are truckloads of armor,” Tony said. Floored.

“And they’re yours. I just need to convince your critics at the military that we can’t keep them as safe as you can.”

“Obviously!”

Steve laughed. 

“I wouldn’t store all of them here, of course,” Tony went on, stretched out his arm to encompass the house and grounds. “But I can give you a tour.”

“I’d like that. If you have time for it? After this business?”

Tony wondered if Steve was trying to be considerate of Tony’s schedule or if in truth he was even more busy and wanted to keep this meeting on point. 

Or did he want to be invited back?

Steve had always been a welcome guest. But Tony would be lying if he hadn’t always kept some parts of his life to himself. He’d had to in the beginning, when even the Avengers hadn’t known that Tony Stark and Iron Man were the same person, but it had remained the same even after the revelation. There had always been parts of his life he kept separate — business, personal problems, Stane senior setting out to steal the company, arnors being used against him, nearly giving in to alcoholism, getting involved with SHRA when it started to form to keep it from getting out of hand and failing. His friends had learned about these things only when they were already exploding. 

He knew it was like this for all Avengers, all heroes, in some ways. They all had their secrets and problems they had to deal with on their own. Steve himself had had his fair share of things he’d preferred to deal with on his own. 

But even Tony had to admit that it was different. Tony kept a tight lid on his problems and sometimes, often if you were to believe Rhodey and Carol, he asked for help too late or for the wrong help. 

If Steve thought this was one of Tony’s secrets coming back to bite all of them, then he was wrong, of course. Tony knew this wasn’t one of his. There was nothing in the data to suggest it and Tony had not found a connection to any of his adversaries. He was sure none of his enemies of the moment was crazy enough to steal from _Doom_. And those of his old enemies who were crazy enough to do that? They were either dead or out of the picture. Mandarin hat been on his mind a lot lately with the circles the the Hammers had been running around him and resilient, but the man was out of the picture and Tony hoped it would forever stay that way. (And he had been worried enough to follow up on what Temugin had been up to recently even though he was sure the son wasn’t trying to walk in the father’s footsteps anymore.) But if this was not Mandarin and also not HYDRA or AIM or even Doom himself — then it was unlikely that it was anyone they knew. 

This was a new player on the board.

Tony motioned for Steve to sit down. 

Steve eyed the sofa then the table in the walk-in kitchen space and after brief consideration he sat down in the living room.

“Your Yvonne Xiu,” Tony said. “I couldn’t find anything on her — which in itself is worrying. But you already knew that, right?”

Steve shrugged. 

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say she doesn’t exist. I’m not even sure I know better.”

“Natasha said something very similar,” Steve admitted.

Tony sat down in the arm chair and tapped the table with his knuckles to wake it.

On the surface it looked like a pretty standard glass surface table. Naturally not too many things in his new home where simple furniture. 

“JARVIS, play us the footage we found.”

“You found something we didn’t?”

“I don’t know? Was this all you had?”

Steve shrugged. Tony imagined Natasha might have turned up more, but not much more.

“After what you told me, I looked for traces of her, specifically wherever you’d expect there to be a market for stolen stark tech.”

“Black market arm’s deals?”

“Yeah, and some of the private auction spaces where those with the cash think law can’t reach them. Well, maybe _a_ Law can reach them there...”

“These are the circles you can run in?”

“I never really did,” Tony said softly, used to the assumptions, “despite all the kind rumors.”

“I know,” Steve assured him and sounded perfectly honest. “But you could? They wouldn’t second guess Iron Man turning up to something like this?”

“Former arm’s dealer? Billionaire? Hellfire Club member? Even with my current financial status? Sure. The name and reputation still goes a long way. At the very least people would think I’m there to waste money or look what’s on the market... Speaking of the Hellfire Club: JARVIS, footage ready?” 

“Footage from the Hellfire Club,” JARVIS intoned. “Footage from Madripoor, two instances. Footage from Texas. Footage from Chechnya.”

For all announced locations a video or picture sprung up. In all of them a blurred image of a tall lady with long dark hair sprung up. She was dressed differently in each, in only one her hair was done up in a high ponytail. Tony tapped on the glass surface to select the relevant parts of the footage and then told JARVIS to enhance them. 

He knew Steve hadn’t seen these yet. He had dug them up by cross referencing locations he’d found to be popular among tech fences when trying to pinpoint where Zeche had acquired his seizable stash of Stark tech with what he’d found in the data Steve had passed him. 

“It’s her,” Steve said.

“Yeah,” Tony agreed, “but here’s where it gets interesting. JARVIS, show him the timestamps of Texas and Madripoor II.”

The relevant footage switched to the front, enlarged to overlay the remaining open windows in the background.

“Same date,” Steve said and frowned.

“Unless she can beam that’s a hell of a distance to cover. But even then. JARVIS, play them. Give us a time zone and UTC conversion for each timestamp, please.”

JARVIS rolled the videos. Both of them were cuts of at least three sightings that day at each location. In the third half of the footage the timestamps got interesting.

Of course, Steve didn’t miss it. The timestamps lined up. “It’s the _same time_. Even if she could teleport she wouldn’t be able to be in two places at once. How is this possible?”

“It would be a huge feat,” Tony agreed. “I can tell you why it’s so hard to find your phantom. Either she’s a front or she _is_ a phantom.”

“She doesn’t exist,” Steve concluded. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” Tony said. “She might. I don’t believe in ghosts but even I have to admit that as much as I dislike it, magic is an entity that mocks physical laws. Plenty of explanations at our fingertips.”

“You think it’s magic.”

“No,” Tony shook his head, “or I would tell you to call Dr Strange and be out of here.”

Steve grinned. Tony’s distaste for magic had led to many a joke between them.

“Twins? Tech?” Steve gazed. 

“Tech would be my first guess, yeah. Not too far out there with an organization that has developed a taste for exceptional technology.”

“How would they do it?”

“I have my suspicions.”

“AI? Image inducer?”

“The image is too stable for an AI. Very few AIs with a constant 3D projection that can constantly adapt their image to look different on any given day either. Not even FRIDAY could do it this effortlessly. And you always know she’s not real. I made her that way but... Look at this.” He pointed to one of the clearer images. “She’s real. She solid. No flickering. She interacting with objects, shaking hands in the footage from November last year.”

“Image inducer? She a front?”

“Might be. If it is, it’s as good as the technology I would use. I think it’s much more obvious. LMD,” Tony suggested and watched as Steve’s frown deepened. “I don’t remember it, but the files I borrowed…”

“Let’s pretend you had access to them, please,” Steve said and looked pained, but also like he was getting used to this kind of pretending. Tony wondered how often Natasha set information before him she hadn’t acquired in the approved way. There were rules that all intelligence agencies were supposed to follow and Steve was pretty much the face that guaranteed that they followed those rules — but Tony suspected that it would always be a line to carefully skirt along. 

“The data I had open access to, obviously, or otherwise it would have been better protected,” he rephrased and was gratified when Steve barely kept from chuckling, “tells me that when I was Director of SHIELD we had an incident with the Life Model Decoys on the Helicarrier.”

“Not the first and not the last I suspect,” Steve said. He like Tony had had his fair share of bad experiences with them in the past. That SHIELD was still using them in great numbers was understandable, as sometimes an agents life depended on someone stepping in.

“I suspect the same thing. After all, I do well remember the LMD that tried to replace me. Did I ever tell you the whole story? Never mind. We had trouble with our Life Model Decoys. From what I gather, small mishap, code got a bit too independent and snap. We had a rebellion on our hands and I can’t say I blame them. Hard to draw the line between human and robotic life when you work side by side with Vision and Jocasta. The way I read this,” and he waved his hand in a throwaway gesture to let Steve know that he wasn’t impressed by what little data he could glean from the files when this should be a memory, “says we had a rebellion on our hands. LMDs were revolting. Many LMDs. We shut them down, overhauled their code. Negotiated or tried, but where agents where in danger, some LMDs were flat out destroyed before this was settled.”

“I saw the file, yeah,” Steve agreed. “It was flagged to explain some of the newer regulations you put into place.”

“We decommissioned a huge pile of LMDs, all at the same time,” Tony continued. “What happened to the parts of the ones that were destroyed? Where did we store the ones that couldn’t be rebooted? We didn’t keep them on the Helicarrier?”

“I think SHIELD agents weren’t too trustful that rebooting would do the trick. You never signed the papers for it, but they were decommissioned.”

“I imagine I wasn’t looking too closely either. I would have looked into what to do about stabilizing the code before making any decisions but I doubt I followed up. Too much was going on at the time. Thus, my question stands? What happened to the scraps? Where are the bits and pieces of destroyed and decommissioned LMDs?”

He knew he was accusing himself of inattention. After all, he had been Director of SHIELD at the time and it would have been his job to keep track. 

“You think someone got their hands on them then?”

“Look at the timestamps again. Miss Xiu turns up with a face for the first time only a few weeks after that incident.”

Steve’s expression tightened. 

“I know what you want to say,” Tony said. “That’s on me. I should have been on top of that and made sure that not even one single screw that went into a SHIELD commissioned LMD could have fallen into the hands of a nefarious secret crime syndicate. And yet I fear that’s exactly what happened.” 

“That’s not what I was thinking, Tony,” Steve disagreed and Tony was alright with the lie. “I think I’m beginning to see how this played out over and over again. Look at it like this: You’re Director of SHIELD. Believe me I know it means you can’t have your eyes everywhere even if that’s in your job description. You can only trust your people, make sure they are loyal to the right cause. One or another might be easily coerced though. Nefarious criminal syndicate finds the weakest link. Maybe they don’t even need to look, maybe someone steals a SHIELD transport of what they hope to be lucrative tech, realizes it’s unusable garbage to them but worst of all it might tmean SHIELD or Iron Man will hear of what they did. This is useless to them but too hot to fence. They might want it off their hands…”

“You’re going a long way to construct an excuse for me there,” Tony pointed out and had to wonder if Steve truly believed Tony wasn’t to blame for this. Tony himself had trouble believing it, but Steve was like that. He gave you the benefit of the doubt when you didn’t give him a reason to distrust you.

“I’m not finished,” Steve said sternly. “There’s this organization that makes their business with taking the stolen goods off your hands when they get too hot, when there’s a chance of superpowers being involved, helping out those who want to get out of the line of fire. They do. They take it off their hands. Business as usual, but they see _who_ it was stolen from.”

“SHIELD.”

“ _You_.”

Surprised, Tony looked up. “Me?”

“You were Director of SHIELD at the time when they stepped out of the shadows. Your tech seems to be what ‘Law’ is collecting with more interest than anyone else's.”

If that was true then Tony may have landed a new adversary on the playing field without knowing and he had no time to juggle yet another.

“I don’t think I ever knew about it.” Admitting as much pained him. Wasn’t he supposed to be the futurist who saw these things coming? Who prepared? Always at least one big step ahead of the competition. 

Had he been too caught up in his grief? The memories of Steve’s death? Was that why he had decided to delete part of his memories? So he could look to the future more clearly again?

He suspected that the truth was doubtlessly more selfish.

“Nobody knew. But this is when they give themselves a face. The get hold of the LMDs and create a visible connection to their organization. Why?”

Looking at the image of Yvonne Xiu, Tony leaned back: “You get all this from me implying this is about LMDs? I thought I would have to convince you.”

“No, it’s not just from that,” Steve admitted. “It’s a piece of the puzzle falling into place. I spent all of yesterday cross referencing the known instances of Stark International technology being incorporated in the weapons and machines that set us on the trail of the Organization.”

“You were specifically looking for my patents? Should I be flattered you’re worrying so much about my reputation?”

“Your tech was found on the scene every single time that we can confirm their involvement, Tony. _Every time_.”

“I’m not as surprised as I should be. With the recent trouble, with Skrulls, HAMMER and Osborn and Zeche Stane… It might just have been conveniently available because I was conveniently not on top of my game. It’s own problem, I admit. But it doesn’t mean…”

Steve folded his arms in front of his chest and pointed out: “They might have been trying to get your attention. It would explain another thing.”

“They whole deal is to _not_ get that attention though. Their whole business model as you just laid it out is to not get on our radar.”

“How do you explain the robots? We have established already that their priorities have changed. And there’s this...” Steve pulled up his arm, typed on his wrist computer. Two incident reports were projected in a cone of light that Tony had not seen before. “Natasha thinks these two are connected.”

“Robberies?” Tony asked. “More clients?”

“We thought so at first. All her sources point at ‘Law’ having ordered them. The Organization pulled in favors to get what they wanted right from the source.”

Tony knew the names of competitors, could see at a glance that at least one of the suspected Organization heists had happened at a Roxxon facility.

Where they trying to make enemies?

“Is that why you pulled me in? Because they are looking for conflict now? Because you think I’m one of the people they’re trying to challenge?” 

Steve shook his head firmly. “I thought you’d be the best person to pull in. I trust you. You know this stuff and you know the people in this business. And I knew you would want this solved more than anyone _if_ they are trying to collect your tech specifically. And I do think that is a real possibility or I wouldn’t have brought it up. The more I look at what we know, the more I begin to wonder. If it was about the military grade tech to build drones, weapons, tanks, cause insurgency and conflict when they need us to focus our attentions somewhere and not on them — there are better ways for them to get by. Why prominently feature parts in it that have an Avengers name written right across? At a time when even the least technology-minded crook will know you are tracking down every scrap of stolen Stark tech.”

“I’m not convinced. I _am_ on the lookout for who takes an interest in what I do. They would have come on my radar sooner, Steve. Otherwise what is all of my security worth? But say this is them upping their game, challenging SHIELD and the Avengers, then the question is why? What do they have to gain by making enemies now?” 

“Conflict? Divide and conquer has worked before. They have grown in size and influence and now won't show more potential clients how they can handle us.”

Tony bit his lip hard. Steve spoke the damning words so easily and calmly that it twisted the knife. _That_ made a terrible amount of sense. Right now, Tony was an easy target. Even before he had been the poster boy of registration and making him look bad could have served the Organization's purpose. It had shortly after worked perfectly for Osborn. He leaned back, fingers of both hands touching as he thought this through. “We can test the theory. See where this angle leads us.” 

“We can,” Steve agreed. “And even if I’m wrong then it means we can still get a new lead.”

“Good timing too.”

“How?” Steve looked at him questioningly.

“I have an invitation to Madripoors Technology Fair.” 

“That’s not the nice name for the arm’s exhibition,” Steve wanted to know, “is it?”

“No,” Tony said and grinned, but close enough. “It’s for information technology and robotics. And the organizers have been trying for years to make it seem interested in legal business only.”

“The harder they try the more I feel they are trying to divert attention.”

“A little of both. They are trying to get established names on the guest list and there are well-regarded buyers coming, too. Some nice international projects got involved… But, yeah, I suspect you will meet the same crooks and partisans among the visitors as you would at their arm’s dealer’s paradise.”

“You think our Organization will be there. What do you suggest?”

“I go,” Tony said. “I see what’s going on. This is their turf, this is where they reach out to clients, this is where potential clients are trying to sell their loot.”

Steve leaned forward, arms propped on his thighs. “Alright, but let’s think this through. SHIELD should go. You stay under the radar.”

“Steve, I _can_ be inconspicuous, but then what would be the point of going as Tony Stark to a tech convention?”

Again, Steve nodded and there was the beginning of a true smile there. “True,” he conceded. “But it’ll cause less of a stir than Commander Rogers going to a tech convention.”

“My point.”

Steve sat up, sighed. Something about this didn’t sit right with him but whatever it was he thought voicing it was a bad idea. _So much for trust_ , Tony thought.

“I get it. Will you have something to show? Something to attract the right attention?”

“You want me to put something on display that could be stolen?”

“Something that boss would want to have in his collection.”

Tony started. “You want me to be robbed?”

“No, I want someone to be interested in robbing you.”

“Oh, well then, that makes a lot of a difference then.”

“I can think of a couple of things.” He thought about it. I hadn’t thought of actually presenting anything. I will speak to Cababa and see what we have that we can introduce without it causing us problem for what we have planned at Resilient,” he offered. 

He had a feeling Pepper was going to have his hide for this. So far he had only hinted at working on something else and she had threatened to send Bambi his way to give him an ear full. She would don the rescue suit and kick his ass on live TV after she heard of this.

 _Better make sure the RT withstands the strain then_ , he thought.

“Good,” Steve said. “Then here’s the plan.”

Tony opened his palms in a “go ahead”-gesture. Captain America had always been a born strategist and that Steve would be the one calling the shots on this mission had never been in question.

“Look into what you can bring to the convention. We will contact the organizers, make sure it gets announced properly that you will have something to show.”

Tony nodded. 

“Make sure your people know you will be away for two weeks.”

“A two weeks?” he startled. “This only runs for four days.”

“Prepare you people that you’ll be gone for two weeks if possible,” Steve repeated — there was nothing in his stance that suggested an order but his words did not invite argument. He was strategizing again.

Frowning at the suddenness with which his schedule had been commandeered he nodded. Perhaps Steve expected they’d need time to follow operatives? Pepper wouldn’t be happy with the presentation of the Resilient Car looming but if Steve thought they needed the time then Tony would make room for him in his schedule.

“I can book us...,” he started.

“No need,” Steve interrupted. “I will make the arrangements. Leave it to me.”

“Who pays?” Tony quipped.

“Leave it to _me_. Don’t worry. It’ll be settled and you won’t miss out on a luxurious hotel room.”

“Ha,” he said and stared wide-eyed at Steve’s eyes crinkling up with honest amusement wondering if Steve relished to be the one who could offer this to Tony for once when it used to be the other way around. “You know, I can foot my own bill even if I’m broke, relatively speaking? That my net worth is down, doesn’t mean I don’t have any money left.”

“I will take care of it,” Steve stressed. “And it will be _our_ bill. You’re not going alone. I’ll go along.”

Tony blinked. Then blinked again. “I thought the point was to be inconspicuous and behave naturally. An Avenger turning up on the scene with the Commander of world security in tow is the exact…”

“Commander Rogers won’t be in Madripoor. Tony Stark will arrive with a simple security detail.”

“A _bodyguard_? This is a joke, Steve? I’ve been my own…”

“And we all know how good of a job you do protecting yourself,” Steve huffed without heat. 

Knowing he had no leg to stand on, Tony didn’t try to argue and changed tactics. “You’ll be recognized instantly. Unless...”

Steve grinned. Sometimes it was easy to forget that Steve had run with spies for as long as he’d run with capes. “Image inducer works well.”

Tony sighed. “It will work better when I gave it an overhaul,” he muttered.

For the first time since they’d started this informal strategy meeting, Steve looked pleased. 

Who could argue with that outcome?

* * *

The MTS — Madripoor Technology Show — bustled with life. With a glance Tony surveyed the crowd and found a mix of familiar faces and company signs and those not known to him. He’d been invited to a tour of the event space and Steve had suggested they take the tour later to inconspicuously survey the halls. Experience told Tony, that it would be a waste of time usually but Pepper had urged him if he had to absolutely go to at least look at startups and new talent.

He had promised to do it and hadn’t explained that it would fit his cover nicely.

For now he was walking to the opening ceremony, his “bodyguard” at his shoulder. 

After Tony had spent two days with the shield issue image inducer to turn it into an electro magnetic mask. He was confident now that they could keep Steve’s identity secret if nothing interfered with their best laid plans.

“It won’t stand up too in depth scrutiny, Steve,” he’d warned when he’d attached the nodes to Steve’s face. “This is a convention for technologically minded people. The right frequency and you mask will be disrupted, an anti-technology field and the module will be down. But nobody should pay you too much attention.”

The mask gave Steve dirty brown hair, brown eyes, a slightly bigger nose and a terrible mustache that made him look like a security guard from an awful 80s movie. Tony had adjusted it to change as little as possible and yet achieve the greatest effect. Too much modelling over the features and the chance of asynchronous movements that could give their game away. It was best to keep it simple.

Steve was still the same tall man with impressive shoulders and muscled arms but even his friends wouldn’t have recognized him.

“I could have dyed my hair and worn make-up,” Steve had suggested after looking at himself in the mirror.

“Paranoid people know what to look for. Let’s assume we are dealing with people who are very paranoid. We can use something to mask your voice too. Would anyone recognize your voice?”

They had in the end decided against it. There was no reason to believe that anyone had studied Commander Rogers voice or mannerism. Steve wasn’t going to do the talking and if he was to speak he would use a slightly rougher, more throaty voice. The changed looks should do the trick. It was easy to forget how good an actor he could be when you’d seen him sulk round Avengers mansion unable to hide his displeasure too often.

“And,” Steve had pointed out, “all eyes will be on you!”

Now that they were making their way through the crowd, the people parting to let him through when they recognized who he was, his words were proven true — nobody was giving Steve so much as a second glance. 

People were looking and Tony and whispering. 

The odd “acquaintance” walked up to him and involved him in small talk, but his “bodyguard” wasn’t worth the attention. 

They walked through the hall, past Asian tech companies, different booths that were boasting with what looked like old Russian artillery pieces only worth something to collectors. Steve said: “Looks like this is a lot more than the arms convention than I would have thought.”

“Told you,” Tony said. “They _are_ invested in the technology part of this event, but nobody minds that it’s basically the second show in the annual schedule where the arms dealers can quietly sell under the table.”

They walked past a booth with machine guns, some of which looked a little to alien for Tony’s taste. 

“Some dealing seems to be happening on the table,” Steve commented wryly.

Tony walked around the corner and whispered: “Tell me those weren’t Kree.”

“They weren’T Skrull, is what I can confirm.”

Sharing an uncomfortable look, they agreed without words to stay on track for now. But Tony saw Steve carefully tab his wrist communicator. He was probably sending an image or a note about what they’d seen to Sharon or whoever else was on the bridge of the Helicarrier while Steve was here with him.

They found their way to the conference center and decided to check the room for Tony’s presentation. “Mr. Stark, such a pleasure to meet you,” the young woman, he’d emailed with, told him and shook his hand. She briefly looked at Steve, dismissed him as the hired brawn he wanted to be seen as and turned back to Tony with a brilliant smile.

“You must be Eileen? Call me, Tony. Everyone does.”

Ms. Eileen Wong had not expected Tony to remember her first name and her cheeks flushed with excitement, she giggled. She looked a lot younger that Tony had expected, even younger when she was excited. 

“Do you want to see the room we have arranged for your presentation? We expect quite a few people to be interested.”

Tony nodded, absentmindedly. He had signed-up late and, obviously they had shifted their schedule to give him a bigger space that would have otherwise been available. 

She opened the door for him to give him a look at the room and the presentation that was running at the moment. The room wasn nothing fancy, furnished with chairs for about three hundred people. 

“Will you bring your own equipment? You marked you would bring the model…”

“For the masking tech?” He motioned at Steve who stoically refrained from raising an eyebrow at Tony referring to masking tech and pointing at him. He raised an arm, showing the metal case he was carrying. 

Eileen nodded. “And…”

“I won’t need assistance,” Tony went on. “How much time do we have between presentations?”

He knew, of course, they’d exchanged all relevant information beforehand. People liked to be asked the right questions though and know they’re presenters knew the details “Only ten minutes if they finish in time.”

“Not a problem,” Tony assured and nodded at Steve as if he was silently confirming something. 

“We are very excited,” Eileen said and smiled. “Could you be here at least 15 minutes in advance? I’m sorry we can’t run a check…”

He waved her concerns away. “It won’t be an issue.”

What was going to be an issue, Tony realized a minute too late, was Justine Hammer rounding the corner, spotting him immediately. 

Trying not to wince visibly, he told Steve: “Can I hide behind you, Dan? Do I pay you for that?”

“If bullets start flying? Yes, Mr. Stark, that is part of my job description.”

“Tony,” Justine said, voice shrill and filled with warmth that didn’t reach her shark-like gaze.

“Justine,” he said, with equally false cheer. “What a surprise.”

“I had heard you’d secured a late slot for a presentation,” she said. “Not the best space, of course.” She looked towards the room and wrinkled her nose. “We will be up on the main stage.”

“Nice,” he said and grinned. It wasn’t like he had aimed for that much attention. In fact Steve had helped make sure they would get exactly this room, knowing it was less secure than the well watched main stage. They hoped to at least catch a glimpse of the Organization. Tony still thought they were more likely to get information from fences, but Steve was sure that someone would be around to at least watch Tony even though it was unlikely someone would make a direct move to steal from him at the fair.

When Justine noticed Steve standing stoically at Tony’s shoulder, her smile turned nasty. “Does Iron Man need his own security detail now?”

“Mr. Stark has hired me to keep the equipment safe,” Steve said unimpressed and without much inflection. If he wanted to impress a woman who had grown up around military bases and arms deals he had chosen the right tone.

Surprised, Justine nodded, wondering probably where Tony had found the former navy SEAL or secret service man for his team. With recent sabotage attempts at Resilient Tony had been hard pressed to hire Beth as his new head of security. A new ex-military bodyguard fitted into the picture.

Trying his best not to show his impatience, Tony looked around. Down the aisles he saw a young woman with long black hair vanish around the corner as if she wanted to not be seen. He wasn’t sure why her quick movement caught his eye, but he asked: “Did you bring Sasha?”

The mother went on the offensive immediately. “Stay away from my daughter. She’s here, yes. But she has better things to do then watch...”

“Don’t worry about that,” Tony snapped back. “I’d like her to stay away from me, too. I just thought I saw her.” He pointed down the line of booths.

Steve’s lips quirked in the tiniest hint of a smile and Tony rolled his eyes behind Justine’s back. 

“I’m sorry, Justine,” he finally said, returning to the false friendliness they’d been engaging in before. “We are of course looking forward to your presentation.” He had no idea when it was, of course, and had no intention of finding out. He was sure that she would keep an eye on what he would be presenting to the public today.

Finally, they watched her walk away — in the opposite direction of where he’d seen the young woman vanish. “Well,” he told Steve, “at least we know we attracted one shark.”

“You have the attention of too many of them already,” Steve returned wryly.

“Speak for yourself, Mr. Moustache,” he quipped. They had settled on the false ID of one “Dan Carter” for Steve, but despite the disguise, Tony had a hard time looking past Steve’s often very Steve-like expressions and reactions.

Steve took the teasing in stride, keeping a blank face. 

“We _are_ being watched,” Steve said finally. “Followed.”

He looked to his left as he walked, making sure Tony caught it, but otherwise neither turned his head or pointed. Tony took his point and didn’t look directly. But from the corner of his eye, Tony saw a black ponytail vanish behind another booth. 

“Could be Sasha Hammer,” he whispered. “Not her style though to be subtle. Could be anyone, really. I’m Tony Stark at a technology convention.”

Steve nodded his head slightly. “Let’s watch our surroundings. Keep our eyes open.”

“It’s not likely that they will just topple us and runaway with the goods. We should take our chances and ask around. They way they’ve been operating the most they’ll do is try to get a good look at the merchandise.”

“It wasn’t like they were attacking think tanks with robots a month ago. A criminal changing his modus operandi so significantly might only be getting started. I won’t let anyone tackle you, though, Mr. Stark.”

“You’re more paranoid than me, … Dan.”

“I’ve been watching these people a bit longer than you,” Steve said with the carefully blank expression of the hired muscle. It still sounded like an unnecessary warning. 

Absentmindedly, he noticed three of the security cameras located above them turning towards them at the same time. He stopped in his tracks to look up and watch what they would do next but they stayed focused on him.

Steve stopped, followed his gaze and then asked: “Something wrong, sir?”

“For one, you’re still calling me ‘sir’, Dan. Call me Tony like everyone else, please.” 

They weren’t bantering anymore, this wasn’t teasing. They had both automatically reacted to each other’s cues and fallen into the roles they’d chosen for this mission. Steve might not be seeing what Tony was seeing, not get the same input from armor stored in his bones, but he knew something had made Tony suspicious. 

“Tony,” Steve said with the edge of true professionalism, “do you want to return to the hotel to prepare or do you want to look around.”

It was Steve’s way of offering Tony a way to step out, in case there was something he needed to tell Steve while they weren’t watched, without the potential to be overheard.

Tony shook his head. The whole point here was to attract attention.

They had gotten someone’s attention alright. 

He took a small device from his pocket, refraining from calling the armor into full formation for everyone to see, and looked at it. For the camera’s it would look like a flat new phone with a small screen instead of the near tablet-sized ones that were selling better this season. 

Tapping his finger against the glass gave him some satisfaction. With all that he had learned about the event space before he’d ever set foot on the grounds, it took him less than thirty second to hook himself into the security mainframe. Another twenty seconds later he had frozen the footage of all three cameras to the moment when he looked up at them. He set the moment of him raising his head looking from camera to camera loop indefinitely.

“Tony?”

“Don’t worry,” Tony told Steve. “I’m just sending a message. Making contact, so to speak.”

“Already?” Steve asked dryly, but he raised a quizzical eyebrow at him.

“I’m beginning to agree with you,” Tony said. “Let’s watch our steps around this ballroom.”

At least, he thought, I brought the right dance partner for whatever is going to happen.

* * *

The stage was small and Tony was glad he didn’t need the provided screen.

Steve had put down the equipment and had taken up a strategic position at the entrance of the room. With the visible cables at his ear folding his arms in front of his chest like your standard the bodyguard he really look the part. He surveyed the people streaming in from behind his oversized sunglasses and only Tony knew that Steve was using those to send a life feed of the room right to SHIELD. That way they would be able to run a check on every single person joining this presentation later.

In case, their lawless ‘Law’ would be driven here by curiosity, they would have an image they could cross reference later.

The more likely person to catch in the crow was his right hand woman though.

Tony had not yet seen anyone who resembled the puzzling Yvonne Xiu, but he doubted she would be this obvious. 

But looking for her was Steve’s job, not his. He had a show to put on.

He turned on his best business meeting smile as soon as room had filled up, thanked everyone for coming, let applause wash over him.

The he sprung into a brief introduction of Resilient and the new era they were trying to usher in in with new ideas, how his alter ego Iron Man had been a crutch for him when he’d designed him, but now was a paragon of the future. “Because so many new ideas can be fostered with the right energy sources.”

He let a drawing board model of their car’s design spring from the 3D projector. “A sustainable better future for everyone is what we’re working on at Resilient,” he intoned with practice, hearing his voice loudly through the speakers. “With repulsor tech and new self-driving capability the Resilient car will be our first step towards a cleaner world, affordable resources.”

By now he had talked up the car to so many investors -- some who had scoffed at first at the “green agenda” until Tony had gone into his vision for a future. He knew how to speak to the capitalist heart. When he talked about sustainability and innovation, about rising prosperity, then many heard a promise for more profit for them only.

With a show like this, he wondered if innovation or profiteering were why people were here. Some people might actually be interested, while others hoped for new ideas they could militarize. 

He remained cautious in anything he put before them.

The room erupted into a new round of applause when the image snapped away for the projected image of a futuristic city, repulsor driven cars, hovering over the winding streets. He liked the image. They’d used it in countless presentations already to show that the car wasn’t where it would end. “Repulsor technology as we are enhancing it now will transform our cities and homes.”

He motioned for the room to quiet down.

“Why am I talking about this in a presentation about a stealth technology?” he asked the room. The people in the first row were hanging on his lips. Some had forgotten why they were here at all. A few might have come simply to see Iron Man.

Snapping his finger, he made the last projection vanish. “Resilient is where we build the future, but it doesn’t mean we can’t use our expertise to protect the here and now.”

He motioned to the round device he’d placed on the floor from which just a moment ago the projections had sprung up. “You see this, and think of it as a fancy projector. In a way, that _is_ all it is.”

A dramatic pause gave his audience the moment it needed to wonder what he was about to say.

“What you can do with it, actually, is much more than that.”

He let the model of a woman spring up. She was about Pepper’s height, had black hair, done up in a messy bun, strands hanging out left and right and was dressed in a black turtleneck dress with a knee-long skirt and a red leather jacket. She had the words, Stark Resilient on the lapel of her jacket. She waved at the crowd, directed by the simple AI hed written for the task, nicknamed RED. 

Even standing only a few inches away from her Tony couldn’t make out that she wasn’t solid. That was the point. He had been working on perfecting the 3D projections since that one time Doctor Doom had fooled him (but in the end not his sensors) with projecting solid walls over doors. 

“We’re in Madripoor. I expect many in this room have visited a concert by digital holo-idol Dee-Haru?”

There was a slight chuckle as the holographic lady beside him nodded vigorously and smiled, as if she had been to a concert. 

“Our RED is a fan.”

“I am,” she said back. He had chosen her voice because it reminded him of Carol when she was telling him to get his act together. 

The room chuckled. 

“As you can see we do not need to smoke or surfaces to make her stand here. She could be standing in the entrance hall of our new offices to greet guests, report life from the area of a natural disaster.”

“You wouldn’t make me,” RED remarked. 

“True,” he agreed. He avoided looking into Steve’s general direction, but he was aware that Steve was moving along the wall. Something might have caught his eye. “I wouldn’t. I would send Iron Man.”

The amused chuckle turned into laughter.

“RED is only one of the impressive models you can create with an advanced holographic disc like this. You can do much more with them though. And this is where it gets to the interesting part.”

He snapped his fingers again, keeping a careful eye on what Steve was doing in the back. “For one,” he said, “you don’t need the screens provided by the organizers.”

RED vanished an a mode of the disk appeared. Tony rattled down some of the technical details until he came to his main point. “The discs can be manufactured in different sizes.”

With one hand he pointed at the disc that had served him as the model for all demonstrations so far. “This is one of our biggest models. It works independently of other units, connected to whatever you need it hooked up to.

“It gets interesting when you connect many smaller ones.”

He used his other hand to make a circle motion and was suddenly away that there were three cameras in the room that he hadn’t been aware of before. Steve had spotted one of them and was looking up at it with a frown. Tony could have sworn none of this had been here before he’d entered the room. 

Someone had been looking for a way into this room without being here. 

Alright.

They had that someone’s attention.

Tony waved his other hand around in a circle and above his shoulder a drone in the shape of a Generation 7 Quinjet appeared inch by inch as the cloak on it was dropped and the field around it vanished. It flashed the Avengers’ logo at the crowd.

“Did you know it was there?” Tony asked, attention not on the showmanship, but still doing a well-enough job of it. 

On the other side of the room, Steve was following the angle of the camera to see where exactly it was pointing. Of course, Tony already knew. They were all pointing at the stage, at him, at the tech he was presenting as if it was the hot thing in stealth tech.

“This,” he pointed at the Quinjet but felt like he was speaking directly at Steve, “was here the whole time. You just didn’t see or hear it. In fact,” he pulled a scanner from his pocket that he had decided to bring mostly for show, “this model is covered in tiny spheres like this one.”

He pointed at the big one on the floor, didn’t have to wait for it to give him the enhancement specs of the Qunijet model’s surface. “They little sphere’s are programmed to act together, forming a net. Essentially they are projecting whatever you want around the device.”

He let it form a miniature cloud, a swarm of tiny birds, the moon. 

“It will make pyrotechnics unnecessary at your next party,” he promised, sure that not even half of the people in the room would get he was referring to warfare as much as fireworks at Independence Day. 

For those of you who want to use it for security it does come with some added advantages.”

He let the projector throw up a screen. “This is giving you what the best Stark Tech scanners are seeing.”

There was nothing but the faintest glimmer of static, white noise. “Essentially they see nothing. The spheres are shielding this little jet well enough to make sure it can’t even be picked up by the best Stark radar technology. Even the noise of an engine can be matched by the right sound waves to become nothing but white noise.”

He knew there were some kinks that he needed to work out but he didn’t need to talk about that here. Here his only goal was to impress and make sure he drew the attention of their nefarious tech collector. 

“Do we have someone here working with security technology? I’m sure we do. What kind of fair would it be if there was no competition?”

He even recognized some of said competition even though the Hammer ladies had stayed away. They likely had someone else watching.

A few people nodded.

“Does anyone care to scan the stage and tell me if our little aircraft is showing?”

A slightly impressed murmur was enough of an answer.

The first people were looking at the stage with the glimmer of _want_ that came with the kind of weaponization his tech wasn’t meant for. Just as well as he had no intention of making this an actual product any time soon. 

“Nothing?” he asked the crowd. “You can see it with your own eyes though.” 

He let the cloak drop and the Quinjet whirred around it.

That had left an impression.

But he wasn’t.

“Did your scanners see this?” 

He threw and flipped the scanner device that doubled as a remote and caught it, pressing the button to drop another cloak. 

A shining red and gold Iron Man armor took a step forward to stand beside him. It was a Model 34 armor that had never seen combat but that with its active camouflage and radar-absorbing skin had inspired the show he’d put together today.

People were clapping, honestly impressed.

He took a small bow and rolled three spheres along the floor. RED appeared and walked along with the spheres, waving at the crowd and also taking a bow.

“Thank you for you attention,” he told the cheering crowd.

Steve stood to the back of the room, arms folded in front of his chest, grinning and shaking his head. Of course, he had seen Tony playing it up for an audience before and his objective here was to watch the room and not Tony.

When the room cleared and Tony had packed all their props properly, shoved the metal case with the tech into Steve’s hand. Steve wrinkled his nose as if the moustache he was sporting was actually his. “Nice display, Mr. Stark.”

“Think the fish are biting today?” Tony asked under his breath, in mockery of the usual secret agent lingo.

“Not sure they’re biting here. But you can be sure that you were being watched.”

He asked no more questions, and shrugged. Then he directed the armor to follow them closely. 

Eileen Wong stepped towards them as the audience was led out, some people lingering around to catch Tony for a post presentation talk. She smiled uncertainly at Tony and then took in the armor. “Very impressive,” she said nervously as if she expected the armor to strike out at her, “I’m sorry we have to leave in such a hurry.” She pointed at the next presenter walking towards the stage. He also looked slightly intimidated when he saw Tony and the armor standing guard at his shoulder.

Tony ignored it, smiled and nodded, slowly walking towards the doors with “Dan”, the Mark 35 and Eileen.

“When can we expect that to be on sale?” a gruff looking man in business suit asked as they passed him.

“Call Resilients sales department. They can give you a schedule,” Tony said and handed out a card on the fly, all the while thinking: _Most of all they can give you a thorough check-up to make sure you’re not an arm’s dealer._

Several other people stepped up. He was pleased when one turned out to be interested more in the Resilient car than anything he’d shown in that room. Two more people wanted to take a picture of him and the armor. Under Steve’s watchful gaze, he ended up posing for the fairs webpage too.

He handed out a few more cards, all with the address of their main office and open telephone, without much hope to get backing backing for their real projects.

Again, he couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched, but this time it was harder to place.

There were security cameras, but also people _were_ watching from all directions.

To one side at least three security men had gathered, all of them big and burly, watching the proceedings from behind heavy dark sunglasses, while in the booths opposite people were gathering to watch.

“You won’t have the armor right at your shoulder all day?” Eileen asked softly. She would be the one who would have to explain to her bosses when the halls became overcrowded because everyone wanted a superhero selfie.

“I have Dan at my shoulder all day,” Tony said and wriggled his eyebrows in Steve’s direction, who kept the professional expression of the disinterested security detail.

“Very professional,” Eileen agreed and briefly smiled at “Dan” before turning her attention back at Tony. “Can we get you something to drink? Something you want to see at the show?”

“I’m sure you have more guests to host. I think we’re done for now, Dan?”

“The schedule I was handed says I’m supposed to get you safely back to the hotel,” Steve announced, perhaps a tiny bit louder than was appropriate for someone who was keeping you safe.

They were playing it up now, Tony supposed.

“Oh.” Eileen nervously checked her folder of papers, her watch and then quickly swished from screen to screen on her cell phone. “I have a moment. If you want I can get you to the parking lot through less crowded halls.”

Tony met Steve’s eyes to confirm and at his shrug told the young woman: “That would be lovely. I can put the armor back in stealth mode, but people will start bumping into it.”

“No, no,” she said quickly, “not necessary.”

She gave a brilliant smile and motioned them away from the still intently watching crowd and to a side door. “You parked by the west gate?”

Steve nodded. He had insisted it was the parking lot that wasn’t watched as much as the others because construction work was going on around the entrance area there that had cut off the parking lot from the hustle and bustle a bit. 

“We can go straight through. We need to get around hall 13 to get you to the other side.”

“Nothing happening there this year?”

“It’s been renovated but the air conditioning isn’t working yet.”

Tony nodded along, trying to keep the conversation flowing, while they finally dipped out of sight of the security people who had been watching with eerie interest.

Steve was walking beside him as if he was on full alert. 

Was that part of the role he was playing?

His way of making the tech he carried seem more important?

Now they would put it in the hotel suite under semi-secure lock and wait if someone was coming for it, so perhaps Steve wanted to make sure everyone knew it was worth protecting and thus worth stealing.

Before Eileen led them through another huge hallway door and into the open, Steve stopped, holding the door open for Tony. He stood there longer than necessary looking back into the halls with its crowds and worde the frown of someone who was worried.

“Miss Wong,” he said, “what is the fastest way to the car? I think we better stay out of sight.”

Tony frowned at him. “Dan, takes his job very seriously,” he then explained to Eileen.

“Something wrong?”

“I don’t think so,” Steve told her in a voice that told Tony the exact opposite. 

“We could go through Hall 13,” the young woman said timidly, as if she thought it was a bad idea, something she could get in trouble for.

Tony was about to tell her not to bother, when Steve put a hand on his shoulder and said: “That would be very much appreciated.”

While Eileen went through her keys, Tony and Steve stared at each other silently. 

Was this still part of the script or had Steve seen something that had changed their plan.

“You really think this is necessary?” Tony whispered.

“Three security guards are following us and there was a woman who looks suspiciously like our LMD down by the corner booth watching us,” Steve whispered back.

“They wouldn’t make a move here.” He pointed at the armor himself and Steve.

Eileen finally had the door of hall 13 open and waved them from the corridor to the next hallway. “Nobody comes this way,” she said as she put on the lights in the outer section. 

Then she led them to the door that would be the main entrance to the currently empty exhibition hall. 

Inside they were greeted by darkness. Tony let the armor step in first to light the way with its chestpiece. Tony stopped when he realized there was a huge shape in the back of the hall.

“Is that supposed to be here?” he asked and pointed. He and Steve were still in the open door not taking a step forward. Tony called up Bleeding Edge, the armor bleeding from his bones ready to form the full fledged armor around him. For now he just wanted a scan, because the hulking form over there reminded him of what they’d found at that abandoned warehouse. 

“Mr. Stark,” Steve’s voice said tenseley.

Aware that something was wrong, Tony turned to look at Steve who was standing with his back to him now, covering him.

A familiar long haired woman held a gun to Eileen’s cheek.

The young woman was pale and frozen fright. “Mr. Stark,” she echoed, pleadingly.

“Drop the goods,” the woman -- obviously the entity they’d come to know as Yvonne Xiu said. Her arm tightened around Eileen’s neck and the young woman whimpered.

“Mr. Stark,” Steve repeated. This time it sounded like a warning. 

Sure enough, when Tony looked past him, there was another gun pointed right at Steve.

Bleeding Edge formed around him in stages and he got ready to fire a shut. He had the Mark 35 right beside himself too.

“I thought you were crazy,” Tony admitted, “but they really like my tech.”

“Don’t make another move,” the Ms. Xiu shouted when she realized he was forming the armor. She was pulling Eileen away from them. The person pointing the gun at Steve’s head potion for him to step out of the door and only when Steve complied, following the direction in which Xiu was pulling Eileen, Tony realized it was another Yvonne Xiu.

“You want the case?” Tony was encased in armor up to the neck. “Take it. Let her go.”

He pointed an armored finger in Eileen’s direction. 

No need to get the poor woman hurt.

He was planning this through already. 

The Mark 35 was behind him.

Steve was in front of him with the case that held the stealth tech.

If he directed the Mark 35 to take out the second Xiu as soon as they’d exchanged the case for Eileen, they could overpower the remaining one easily. 

“Dan,” he ordered, “give her the case.”

They had prepared it with a signal they could follow and it didn’t really matter if they handed it over here or let them steal it later. What came as a surprise to Tony, was that the organization was making a move here and now. 

Steve moved forward to hand over the case.

Tony held out a hand to Eileen, ready to grab her outstretched hand and pull her from her captor’s grasp. 

The poor thing had started crying.

“You get this and you give her to me,” Tony said, trying for a calming tone, even though he knew he was talking to an LMD. When it came down to it LMDs were as human as the next guy. 

Xiu I nodded and when Steve handed her the case, she _did_ let go of the woman, who grasped Tony’s hand and let herself be pulled away.

That was when everything started to go wrong.

He had been about to send another silent command to the Mark 35 when Extremis glitched out… The RT that controlled all his bodily functions and the armor stopped doing what it was supposed to. He lost 1.47 seconds until it was back online, found himself down on his knees, Steve was shouting his name, and the armor was bleeding off him like melted steel, trying to creep back into his bones.

With a gasp he came back to himself, tried to answer Steve, but found only Eileen’s grinning face in front of his own. 

“I’m sorry,” she said sweetly and with more self-assurance than he’d heard from her all day, “Specialized EMP. We learned a few tricks of our own.”

If he weren’t in so much pain right now, he would have laughed. “Yvonne Xiu. Eileen Wong.”

“Well,” she said and grinned at the LMDs. “We middled their new personality on mine, yes. They are like sisters to me.”

“Good to know,” he gasped and sent a new directive to the Mark 35.

There was no answer, just a voice. The armor stood at his side unmoving, frozen in a waiting position.

“Tony!”

He tried to look up, heard grunting and fists connecting to body parts.

Then hands were on him.

Meaty strong hands, heavy and big, held his shoulders in an iron grip, pulled him to his feet. No piece of armor was left above his business suit and try as he might the RT wasn’t pulling it back up. He stumbled and huffed when his right arm was grabbed and pushed behind his back.

“Don’t try anything funny,” a rough voice told him.

One of the “security” people holding him securely but surely not to protect him.

By now Steve, who _had_ given their attackers a hard time, had his hands up and looked at Tony worriedly.

 _He_ had expected someone to try and steal Tony’s tech. But Tony could read it even on his half disguised face that neither of them had expected this level of violence.

Feeling for the armor and trying to get it back up gave him a short pingback: It would need another 23 seconds to full reboot. They would need to buy a bit of time.

Tony turned to Eileen. “What do you want?”

Her whole demeanor had changed with the two LMDs at her side and ordering her henchmen. 

“We need to lock the doors. Make sure you get the armor out without anyone knowing.”

“Let him go!” Steve shouted and it was his voice. “He gave over the tech!”

“The armor?” Tony asked. “The armor changed your play? The stealth tech wasn’t enough anymore”

Steve frowned at him behind Eileen. 

He realized too late what it was Steve was seeing. One of the LMD ladies had pulled out a bracelet and fastened it around Tony’s wrist. He nearly screamed in pain when he felt the thing _interface_ with his body’s systems.

“We’re sorry about the inconvenience, Mr. Stark, but we can’t have go all Iron Man on us now.” Eileen told him, then ordered her men: “Our employer wants him to be treated like an honored guest.”

And really, one of the thugs helped Tony to his feet and steadied him.

Steve tried to shoulder his way over to him and help him, but was reminded that nobody had addressed him yet -- or figured out what to do with him.

“Honored guest?” he spat and Tony moved to get between him and a guard before anyone could get ideas to actually take a shot at Steve.

His move did not go unnoticed. Eileen looked at Steve then and considered the situation for a moment -- one of her guards was groaning on the floor, holding his stomach. Steve must have given it to him good -- but if he’d really tried then he would be knocked out.

“We did get your attention, didn’t we?” she asked, and the question was again directed at Tony as if Steve in his bodyguard disguise was dismissible, unimportant. Whatever the deal was here, it was about Tony.

“Mine?” He was not looking at her, but eyeing the bracelet. The mood had shifted, but he was terribly aware that these people had cut him off from his best way to fight back.

“You brought a bodyguard. Someone to watch your back? As if Iron Man can’t protect himself?” She turned to Steve. “What is he paying you? We’ll double it, if you walk away.”

“That’s not…”

“You alert nobody for a few days and we’ll return him…”

“No,” Steve refused the suggestion categorically. 

Tony turned to give him an exasperated look and held up a hand. 

Really? Wasn’t this _exactly_ what they were here for? Steve even had the means to follow them with the signal they’d installed in the tech.

“No,” Steve repeated with his typical Steve Rogers brand of stubborness.

“Work ethics?” Eileen asked.

“Pig headedness,” Tony mouthed.

Steve looked at him unimpressed. It was an old argument between them and they had never resolved who had the harder head.

“Name your price,” she suggested, eyes fixed on Steve and his fake mustache that looked too real..

“There’s no deal. I am not walking away without Mr. Stark.”

One of the thugs -- and Steve it seemed had gotten him too, because his cheek was turning blue, muttered something under his breath.

“What makes you think I’m coming anywhere with you in the first place?” Tony asked after he finished another silent staring contests with Steve, in part because he was feeling nervous about the bracelet and in part because he wanted to stop any more posturing before any of these thugs resorted to violence.

Eileen nodded. “This is not a kidnapping. Not just yet. It doesn’t have to become one.”

She waved at one of the LMDs and it stepped forward without hesitation.

When her mouth opened, it was a male voice speaking and the stark contrast between her feminine beauty and the honeyed baritone made a shiver run down Tony’s spine.

He’d seen things like this before, of course. The technology wasn’t that impressive.

“Tony,” the voice said as if he should know who was speaking, but he was sure he’d never heard the voice before. “I’m very sorry I had to resort to such measures to get you to listen to this recording. I know some of your Avenger friends have had an eye on my organization for a couple of weeks, but now that I have your attention, I can’t let it go to waste. Please accept my invitation. My associates will make sure you have a comfortable journey.”

“And if I’m not interested?”

“You are interested,” the voice answered and Tony realized it wasn’t a recording at all. _That_ was just a tiny bit more impressive. “Or you wouldn’t have come. Admit it. Let’s meet. That’s all I’m asking.”

“I’m interested in stopping another robot attack and more of my tech being stolen,” Tony said and winced, because another attempt at reaching back into the bracelets systems failed and the backlash _hurt_.

“Tony,” the voice urged kindly, and it was weird to see the smooth female face utter the words in that dark baritone that held so much emotion, “stop attempting to hack the bracelet. It’s a necessary safety measure on my part but I have no interest in seeing you hurt. We can talk.”

He opened his mouth to ask another question, but Steve was faster.

“Why would he trust you if you don’t trust him?” Steve asked. He sounded so unimpressed and bored that Tony wanted to laugh. He was the one who had pushed for this whole set-up, frustrated that he couldn’t get another lead on their mystery man and now he had to endure the typical theatrics of an aspiring supervillain.

The LMD turned towards Steve and Tony suspected this was the first time “Law” -- because who else would be the voice speaking to them now? -- took a closer look at the guard Tony had hired.

The question why Iron Man needed a bodyguard was just as funny as the questions about his bodyguard Iron Man had been. Sometimes people really didn’t see the obvious? Shouldn’t a tech genius be able to think about _Avengers_ and come to the right conclusion? 

PErhaps not, with how things between Commander Rogers and Tony Stark had looked to the rest of the world, recently.

“Nobody knows who I am or from where I operate,” the voice said and the LMD turned back to Tony. “This is my way of trusting you. I want to meet. Face to face. No masks. No LMDs. Just you and me.”

“What happens to Dan?” Tony asked, cutting to the chase, and giving the grumbling thugs who were just waiting to have a go at Steve a pointed look. “You said you can’t let him go.”

The LMD considered him, cocked it’s head as if it was reacting to the man that was controlling it right now.

“I can’t risk him alerting anyone,” Law agreed. “I know you take pride in taking good care of your employees. He will come with you and he won’t be harmed.”

“He stays where I can see him,” Tony told the LMD with a stern face, sure his expression was transmitted.

“If that’s what will make you comfortable,” the LMD conceded in Law’s voice and inclined her head in acceptance.

Tony shrugged, then nodded and met Steve’s eyes. Steve gave him a tight nod in return. 

Things weren’t going according to plan -- and yet it looked the bad guy would give them what they wanted on a silver platter. Who was Tony to look a gift horse in the mouth?

“Eileen, my dear,” Law’s voice said. “Yvonne can bring them to me. Make sure the armor is transported safely to the specified location.”

Realizing, Law was discussing the theft of the Model 35 right in front of him, Tony bristled, gnashed his teeth and finally contented himself with glaring at Eileen and her thugs.

“Sure thing, boss,” she agreed and motioned for Tony to follow the Yvonne Xiu LMDs to the other side of empty exhibition hall. Steve fell into step beside him without prompting. 

One of the Yvonne’s snapped her fingers and across the hall another Yvonne opened the door.

“How many of them are there?” Steve muttered.

“At least more than five,” Tony answered and realized that two more Yvonnes were waiting for them beside a posh black limousine. They made them hold up their hands and gave them a thorough shake down, taking cell phones, the little scanner Tony had used during the presentation, their watches and Steve’s gun.

At least they weren’t looking at Steve too closely.

“I hope you have a comfortable journey, Mr. Stark.” Eileen told them and returned back into the empty exhibition hall.

Tony gnashed his teeth harder, let himself be ushered into the car and made sure Steve got in beside him.

The windows were darkened. Nobody would see them in the car. Worse though, the glass was darkened just the same from the inside. 

“Really doesn’t want anyone to know his location,” Steve muttered.

Two LMDs got in with them, sat down in the opposite seats of the posh interior.

A loud click announced the car doors locking.

“Buckle up, Dan.” he said. “I have no idea where this is going. I hope he doesn’t think I’m loaded enough for ransom money to be paid.”

Steve muttered something under his breath that Tony didn’t quite catch. It sounded like: “I hope he doesn’t want to collect the engineer now he has the tech.”

Tony decided not to ask, just fixed his eyes on one of the Yvonnes and in the privacy of his own mind tried to analyze the strange control sphere in the bracelet.

He better find a way to get rid of it, before things got out of hand.

They hadn’t driven far, when the noises changed, the car rocked and suddenly the were shaking and the G-force briefly pressed them into the seats. The LMDs held themselves straight as if nothing had happened.

“Are we flying?” Steve whispered.

“A flying limousine?” Tony asked. “Have to hand it to this crime boss. That is even more preposterous than a flying Ferrari.”

Steve nearly hissed. After all he had been using one of the red flying sports cars Fury had been so fond of since he’d taken the reins at what was now once again SHIELD.

“They could be taking us out of the country,” Steve said under his breath.

Tony nodded.

The thought had occurred to him.

Nothing to be done about it.

They’d find their bearing wherever they were being shipped off to.

He tried to relax into the seat and brace himself for whatever was to come next.

“Don’t worry, Dan,” he said and hoped the image inducer he’d enhanced so it wouldn’t be detectable if someone wasn’t right out looking for it, would do the trick even under the scrutiny of a tech loving villain. “We’ll figure it out.”

“I was about to tell you the same thing, Mr. Stark,” Steve replied and he was trying not to smile. The expression made him look more like Steve than the made-up bodyguard he was playing.

* * *

Without access to the armor and JARVIS and satellite data, Tony couldn’t tell their altitude or speed of travel. By the time the car approached its destination forty minutes had passed. That left too many places in and beyond the borders of Madripoor to be sure where they were landing. He listened closely to the motor as the car hovered over the landing area and noticed that Steve was doing the same.

Then it stopped. 

Tony tried the door immediately under Steve’s watchful gaze, but it remained locked. 

Their designated driver got out, the door on the Steve’s side opened and the LMD motioned for him to get out. Tony was about to follow him, when the door on his side was unlocked and then opened. He stared over his shoulder in surprise, aware that Steve on the other side had stopped to look, but had been requested to raise his hands at gunpoint.

Outside stood a tall man with dark-brown well groomed hair, dressed in a casual white linen suit and wearing a red shirt underneath. Tony had never seen him before in his life, but he knew instantly that he had come face to face with their mystery man. This man certainly wasn’t hiding because he had to hide his face. 

“Tony,” he said with that same slightly grating familiarity from before, the baritone and cadence unmistakably the voice that had come from the LMDs mouth. The attractive man held out his hand to help him from the car, roguish smile just driving home that this one knew his own charm. Of course, Tony was familiar enough with using charm on someone that he wasn’t as easy to persuade but roguish smiles alone.

Not sure he wanted to start the game right away but also not willing to play the helpless victim, he ignored the hand and got out of the car. 

Tony was by no means a small man. But Law was at least two inches taller. Enough to tower over him a bit -- or try.

“Let’s get to business,” Tony suggested and let his “host” know exactly how unimpressed he was by any of this. 

The man laughed amiably and shook his head, as if Tony had made a perfectly charming joke.

The air was humid, but a light breeze blew through Tony’s hair and he turned, casually, to find out where he was exactly, letting his eyes drift over Steve, who was watching the proceedings over the top of the car with his arms raised. 

His feet stood on a nicely paved driveway that led into nothing. Just feet away a white-sandy beach started -- beyond it gently rocking waves. The smell of salt and fresh air was unmistakable.

“An island?” he asked and fixed Law with a stare. 

“That would be telling,” Law shot back and then gestured up the driveway where the pavement led up to a cliff -- a wall of dark stone towering over everything. Tony looked it up and down.

“It’s so good to finally meet you in person, Tony,” the man said — altogether too familiar as if they‘d been long term online buddies meeting for the first time — and gestured again for Tony to walk beside him. “I’ve been following your career for some years. It’s an honor to finally meet the great Tony Stark.”

Although there was no sound from the other side of the car, Tony could hear the _I told you so_ emanating off of Steve. He let his eyes drift over, but found no hint of smugness there. Steve’s heavily disguised face showed the forced calm of the professional. Tony could tell there was real anger beneath it.

The LMD had a gun pointed at his back and Tony could see now that there were three more LMDs arriving from down the driveway. He had no idea where they had come from exactly. There was no opening or door in the wall he could see from here.

Intent on setting the tone and not play along to amiably, he narrowed his eyes and pointed out: “You have me at a disadvantage here. Or am I supposed to call you by your codename?”

Law laughed, throwing his head back in amusement. 

Tony waited it out, throwing Steve another quizzical look. 

Their “host” caught the byplay, and immediately drew Tony’s attention again. “I’m sorry, Tony. I’m not making fun of you.” He sounded sincere. With a flourish he held out his hand as if he wanted Tony to shake it. By now it was apparent that Law had a flourish for the dramatic. It would let them further to let him play it out. Tony shook his hand obediently. “My name is Charles Phillip Law. Law has become a nom de guerre for m, as you already know. People take it to be pseudonym because it’s more than a name.”

Law had a strong, business man-like handshake and a playboy smile.

“More than a name?” Tony asked, hoping to get the man talking more.

Again, Law motioned for him to walk beside him.

Tony nodded towards were Steve was standing with his hands raised.

“Of course,” Law acknowledged, “the uninvited plus one.” He said it as if Tony had brought a chaperone to a date. He motioned for the LMDs to march Steve towards them. 

Finally, Steve was allowed to let his arms sink.

His frown was so much like his own expression that Tony was nervously expecting the disguise to fail.

To take attention away from Steve, he started walking along with Law this time, less anxious now that Steve was walking just a step behind them.

“More than a name?” he prompted once more.

“Oh, yes, of course. For people who deal with me or who enter into my service my word becomes law. It’s part of every contract and agreement. Keeps order in an organization like this.”

“Yes, your organization. I have tried to find out exactly what it is you do, and how you organize your business and the only thing I could find out is that you’re a secretive man and like to steal things that have my name on them. What is it you do, Mr. Law?”

As they approached the cliffs now, Tony could see that there was a small door, not wider than a normal entrance in a New York apartment building. It opened wider when they approached and it would slide back into place to look like part of the stone when they were inside.

 _That_ was impressive.

“I am a bit of a collector,” Law admitted. “And call me Charles, please, Mr. Law was my father and he has imparted the wisdom of making the name count for something. He started this business years ago.”

“Collecting?”

“He started a retreat for mobsters who were looking for a way out for whatever reason. A retreat for those who can buy their way in.”

“Accepting your law to get away from the law?” Tony asked and made sure to scan the shoreline with his eyes and then pay attention to the door’s mechanism. He could see at a glance that this was state of the art security tech. It wouldn’t be easy to get out of here undetected. 

They entered a grand hallway with nice carpets. For the first time they came eye to eye with two young men who did not look like the LMDs from before.

So “Charles” had servants.

“Escaping the law or their own compatriots. It is surprising how many robberies end up with a double crossing of some kind or another.”

“Nobody ever double crossed your father, Charles?” He had nearly said, _Charlie_ , but he decided to play the same familiar tone Law was using with him without being mocking. He wanted their kidnapper in a good mood, to make sure this didn’t escalate before they knew everything they needed to know.

“That is why it’s important to make your word law,” he said amiably, as if they were discussing a normal business venture. “I’m sure you have your own set of rules to follow, Tony.”

“Some people would call them morals,” Steve muttered behind him.

Law snorted. “Where did you find him, Tony? He seems naive for a security guard?” He turned to “Dan” directly. “I’m sure your boss can explain to you that morals only get you so far.”

Because that hit a little close to him, Tony looked back at Steve and tried not to flinch under his gaze. _He_ was supposed to be the boss.but Steve was the _Commander_ and Tony feared his judgement more than anything.

Steve’s clear gaze was unchanged by the mask.

“He’s not naiv, _Charles_. Applying moral standards doesn’t mean never playing dirty, but it means that overall you’re trying to do the right thing. That’s not something you seems very concerned about.”

They had stepped into a gallery, to the left and right of which were countless pictures. Tony wasn’t an expert, but he’d been round expensive collections all his life and there were strokes there that even he recognized. 

“You’re not just collecting Stark tech,” he remarked.

“This is payment for services rendered. Some too hot to sell at the moment,” Charles was still smiling, unfazed by Tony’s judgment. 

He motioned Tony towards an open door.

By now Tony had to admit, with the thick walls around him and the fact that so far he’d only seen two people that weren’t LMDs he wouldn’t be surprised if they turned right into an arena next. What was it Law wanted from him? More tech? Money? 

Extremis, still trying to get past the blocking device, pounded a slight headache against the inside of his temple. Tony took is as warning. The device had been made specifically for him, keeping his cybernetic-biology shut in.

They entered a bg room with a long table, on the other side of it there were vast windows and a glass door led to what looked like a terrace cut into the rough stone.

Perhaps that could be seen from satellite feeds.

The sun was slowly going down outside, evening light turning a dark orange.

Someone lit the fancy chandelier above the table. The room had been carved into the rock expertly. It felt like they’d been invited to an old medieval castle to meet the lord.

The table was set for two, complete with candles and flowery decor. Noticing it, Tony immediately looked what the LMDs and Steve were doing. 

But Charles was already motioning one of the young men into the room. His expression darkened a little when they fell on Steve.

“I’m sorry,” he said to Tony, when he noticed him watching. “I had hoped to get you alone.”

Steve caught Tony’s eyes and gave him the long stare that usually meant: “I told you so.”

Tony shrugged.

It did look like someone had set a table for a fancy date, but now one of the servants dutifully put a third set of dishes on the table, and Charles motioned Steve to his chair while he pulled one out for Tony.

Steve ept his eyes mostly on Tony as he sat down.

Tony watched the pulled out chair, the expectant smile of their villainous but charming host and after drawn-out hesitation sat down and let Charles help him pull the chair to the table.

He fully expected to read mockery on Steve’s face, but the expression he met was dark.

Charles let a hand glide over Tony’s shoulder.

Oh, great he was going to be wooed by a bad guy with Steve for an audience. 

He followed the hand with his gaze, then waited till Charles had settled in.

“It’s a little early for dinner,” he reopened the conversation, “but after a day like this I expected you’d be hungry and needed rest.”

With some trepidation, Tony watched a servant cart a serving tray towards Charles, an assortment of fancy looking bottles on top. If his man thought he’d get Tony to drink then…

“Don’t worry, Tony,” Charles told him. “No wine.” He let Tony look at the bottles of pricey French and Italian mineral water, Apple cider and grape juiced in wine bottles. Whoever this “Law” was truly under the front he was presenting under the persona he had chosen, he had done his homework and wanted to remain on Tony’s good side.

Perhaps they could use that in their favor. 

Tony gave him his most brilliant, grateful smile, feeling Steve frown at him more than seeing it. “Thank you, that’s very considerate of you.”

“I want you to be comfortable,” he said and added after a pause, “with me.”

That held a double meaning that was unmistakably flirty. 

It was also something Tony could work with.

He kept smiling, nodded. “So, tell me then? Why the kidnapping? Why the interest in stealing my tech? I’m sure if you can afford a base like this, you can also afford to buy.”

Charles smiled, watched as soup was served to all of them. “You’re not selling the tech that’s the most interesting, though, are you?”

“No,” Tony admitted and tried to keep the smile gentle and amused. He didn’t like the idea of his tech in the wrong hands at the best of times.

“Because you’re a smart man,” Charles continued and motioned for them to start eating. 

Steve waited for Tony to eat before he reluctantly followed the example.

“So, are you, Charles,” Tony returned the compliment easily, drawing out the name as if he was testing it on his tongue like exquisite sweets. “Not many people are able to shut down Extremis to get me to take their invitations so easily. Then, most people just invite me and leave the choice of accepting to me.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, but we both know it wouldn't have been so easy. I was thinking of approaching you at a party once, but I so rarely go anywhere without business to attend to. And then you never showed up, because Iron Man was needed.”

“You do go to parties?” He made it sound just a note more interested than he was, although he did wonder if Steve could learn something from the exchange that he could use.

“Rarely to have fun,” Charles said gravely. “It’s easier to keep a low profile when nobody knows who they are dealing with. The LMDs have helped with that.”

“Yeah,” Tony noticed two of them standing by the door, watching them quietly, “how are they feeling about the lack of individuality?”

“They know it’s a price to be paid to protect all of us.”

That sounded surprisingly like Charles cared about what was going on with his LMDs. Which as a shame, because then stirring up an LMD revolt was out of the question. 

His best bet would be to hack the bracelet that was blocking him from accessing the armour and then gather whatever they needed to bring this organisation down.

“I understand that your core business is still sheltering criminals…” He was obviously fishing for information that he was sure Charles would cut off this line of questioning.

The twinkle in his dark brown eyes revealed clearly that he knew what Tony was doing — but he corrected him readily enough: “Guest. Please. Not all of them are criminals or mobsters. They‘re simply people who can buy their way into the retreat.“

“They‘re buying protection.“

“In a way,” Charles replied and the dark edge in his answer left no doubt that it was a correction.

It made Tony wonder how many of the “guests” regretted asking for help. 

He pushed the plate with the soup away, and realized that neither him nor Steve had eaten more than half of it. Distrust did not help with the appetite.

“As I‘m not in need of a retreat as you called it, can I ask how I came to be offered an invitation. I‘ll be upfront — it’s not the first time someone thinks they can put me to work and not the first time…”

“Someone kidnaps you for company?”

“Is that what this is?”

Steve sat stockstill in his chair and tried to catch Tony’s eye. But Tony kept all his attention on the charming man to his right. 

Law shrugged his shoulders and then smiled a most enigmatic smile. “You wouldn’t be shocked by the idea?”

“I am not the most popular man right now but I am still Tony Stark, so, no, I’m not shocked. I’ve had a few ladies here and there obsess over me in an unhealthy way. I want to point out two things though,” he said and eyed the main course with narrowed eyes. It wasn’t just the preferred autumn meal he ordered at Vincenzo’s when he was in Seattle — it even looked like it had come right out Vincenzo’s kitchen, complete with perfectly presented pieces of slightly pink boar loin and the way the pumpkin puree was painted across the plate decorated with tiny edible flowers.

He knew he had his rituals, there were patterns that people who knew him well could recognize — from being in a creating frenz, to hiding in the workshop to trying to solve unsolvable problems.

That he had become predictable to someone whose existence Tony hadn’t even been aware of until recently didn’t sit well with him at all.

Steve had no way of knowing what Tony was so put off by, and he raised an eyebrow when he picked up on Tony’s frown. 

Charles picked up on it too and smiled, satisfied that Tony had shown a reaction. “I’m listening,” he said to prompt Tony back into speaking..

Tony did not need the queue.

“I know you say you’re stealing tech because you’re a collector — but you’re also using what you stole. I’m here to find out for what purpose and how fast I have to shut it down.”

About to answer, Charles opened his mouth, but Tony wasn’t done.

“And if this is you looking for a unique addition to your _collection_ then let me tell you that while I run around encased in shiny metal a lot of the time, I make a bad trophy. I’m too independent to be anyone’s kept man. You’re a charming man, I’m sure you have easier ways to find company and whatever you may have heard I’m neither cheap nor easy.”

He stressed company in the unmistakable way that meant sex, aware that Steve had never started eating and that Charles Law was following his evey gesture as if _Tony_ was a morsel waiting to be devoured. It wasn’t like this was the first time that look was cast in his directions — an uncomfortable number of bad guys got the look when they were about to kill you, and it wasn’t even the first time someone looked at him like it with uncouth plans for him. The turn of events was just unexpected.

Because when Steve had said that this bad guy was after _Tony_ and Tony hadn’t wanted to believe it, he hadn’t expected the bad guy in question to be more interested in _him_ than his _tech_.

And if Steve had known, by the looks of it, he would have placed Tony on the other side of the planet, the furthest away from any trap that was being set possible.

But now they were here — and this interest could be an advantage.

“I don’t give much tock to what people say, Tony, so I expected nothing less,” Charles said and he was unhurriedly cutting a piece of boar on his plate. 

This man could have easily passed in society. It was unlikely that he’d spent all of his life on an island and if Charles Law was his real name then it must be possible to find out where he came from.

“I admit,” Law continued, “that the organizations has branched out a while back. The retreat needs to be safeguarded and a few years back, one of our guests came to us, paying in stolen technology. Most of it was Baintronics, some of it decommissioned army and SHIELD equipment. Among the Baintronics specs was something I found particularly interesting and useful — and it took only a little digging to realize that it was a smart cloaking device developed by a small think tank called Stark Solutions.”

Stark Solutions had merged back into Stark International years back but he had done contractual work for Sunset Bain during that time. Did Sunset know about this? Had she been robbed and didn’t know?

Tony wasn’t particularly interested in alerting her to the fact.

“I knew who you were, of course. Everyone knows Iron Man. But I had never given a second thought to the brilliant engineer behind the armor. I am passionate about the technology we use, you see?”

“Cloaking and stealth devices?”

“We have an armory, a fleet of vehicles. Now,” he gestured to the LMDs, “additonal hands. It’s what I’m good at, adapting new tech, finding new solutions. I became interested in Tony Stark more than Iron Man.”

“Flattering,” Tony said curtly and tried to look the part. 

“You have no idea what an honor it is to finally meet you, have you here.”

“At your retreat. It’s…” He didn’t want to put it on to thick and say _impressive_ before he had seen more of it, but Law cut him off before he could find the right word to use.

“Oh, this isn’t _the_ retreat. One of my island homes. I hoped you would like it. I will show you around tomorrow.”

That, Tony admitted, surprised and impressed him — if it was more than an attempt to conceal the truth about the base of operations. But so far he had seen very little indication that there were other people about.

He shot a furtive glance at Steve who wasn’t eating but watching both of them coldly.

“I know SHIELD is looking into my business but whatever information they gathered, Tony,” he said, “most is hearsay.”

“I noticed,” Tony admitted. One of the attendants stepped up to fill his glass with water again. Nobody was doing the same for Steve.

“That’s because you can buy your way into it,” Law said softly and perhaps it was why it sounded like a veiled threat, “but with the understanding that there’s no retreat from the retreat.”

Both Steve and Tony stared at Law when the information sank in.

“That’s how you make sure nobody talks about it,” Steve said, for the first time joining the conversation.

Law raised his glass filled with golden cider and tipped it towards Steve. “That is why I don’t usually try to get attention. We put the right information out to make sure people find us, to make sure we can reach potential clients. But our business plan involves remaining an urban legend.”

“But that has changed,” Steve stated. “You’re selling weapon now? Built from scraps? And selling a product needs the seller to be less mysterious than the keeper of fabled safe retreat for retired robbers and traitors?”

“Where did you find him, Tony? Ex-SHIELD?”

They nodded in unison. To avoid contradictions they had given “Dan” enough of a data trace to seem real. It involved CIA and SHIELD experience. It sounded believable enough that Dan would have quit around the time Osborn had turned SHIELD into HAMMER and he’d come to Tony for a new job.Law might have looked into that story — or more likely he was referring to “Dan” basing his conclusions on his SHIELD experiences.

“That why you brought him?”

“I brought him because I thought you’d try and steal my tech,” Tony drawled, “not _me_.” Dinner all but forgotten he held up the wrist with the bracelet. “Based on a control disk?”

“We took scraps from the public arena after your very public falling out with the Hulk. So did the Wakandans by the way. Do what you will with that information.”

Tony shrugged. He did not remember anything at all about the incident because of his reset but he had seen the reports, of course, and he was aware who — apart from himself as Director of SHIELD and Iron Man — had swooped in to secure technology and intel. That T’Challa had sent some people to the sight, Tony had been aware of and at the time had been inclined to ignore, it seemed. At least he had noted it in the files.

That Law and his “Organization” had been there — that was news to Tony.

What else had they scavenged without anyone knowing.

“You’ve been around without me noticing. I may have underestimated you,” Tony stated and this time he allowed himself to sound impressed. 

It earned him a gentle smile and a stern look from Steve. “I know. We could have stayed undetected. But I wanted your attention. Why do you think I used your technology so prominently in the last demonstration? It was my homage to your genius. But I also wanted you to know I’m there and I wanted you to become interested in the person behind all this.”

So, Steve had at least been partly right.

“Other people send flowers,” Tony said as if Law had just told him he was his secret admirer.

“That would have been too quaint for the likes of us,” Law declared. “Someone who wants to impress Tony Stark needs something out of the ordinary.”

He wasn’t about to point ot that villains using his own tech against him was so run-of-the-mill that it wouldn’t have stood out to him if Steve hadn’t been on the case.

The attendants had started gathering their plates and were bringing out desert. Tony didn’t much care for sweets but he was going to at least play along for a little longer. They had more information about Law and his operation now than they had to begin with, and perhaps that was enough to unhing them. But Law was no fool. He was giving them this because he knew it wasn’t going to be a threat.

“I’m impressed too,” Law said. “You must be at least a little worried about this.”

He caught Tony’s hand in his and pulled it over to stroke a thumb along the metal, letting goosebumps spring up across Tony’s arm. He held his breath. Until now it had been fun and games, but what now?

“You’re not intimidated. You’re sure of yourself and that you can keep control of the situation even though you’re at a disadvantage. I like that, self-assured bravado. You know your own worth — some people don’t and that gets boring real fast. Don’t cause yourself a migraine, by the way. This design _is_ based on the control disk mechanism and I’ve acquired similar technology from your old enemy the Controller. This is coded to your Extremis this time specifically. I’ve spent a long time going over the design to make sure it would work. I was impressed with the way you shook the control disk in the arena, but I also know your Extemis was working at full capacity then. The Skrull changed all that, didn’t they?”

Steve’s hand formed a fist on the table. 

Tony motioned to him to keep out of it. He really didn’t want more attention on Steve and his disguise right now. But this knowledge Law was showing went a little too deep for comfort. “You know quite a bit about me, don’t you?”

He hoped he didn’t know enough about the new RT in his chest yet because then Tony hoped he could shake this disk like he had the last one — it was just take some more effort.

“You’re an interesting man, Mr. Law. I still don’t know what you’re getting out of this that would be worth risking to show your face to an Avenger.”

All people at the table were painfully aware that Law hadn’t let go of his wrist, was still gently caressing his skin.

In fact, Steve looked livid enough to call the whole sharae off and pounce — but the truth of the matter was that they had no way of knowing how many people were on the island and how to get away without the armor. There was no backup on the way, because the last time they had checked in with anyone they had still been in Madripoor. Even if someone had noticed their disappearance by now, it would take some time until someone got alarmed enough to start a search.

And the way Law was talking — he was aware of it too.

Then he did the corniest thing. He pulled Tony’s wrist closer, pressed small, gentle kiss to his knuckles and said: “You’re wondering if you have miscalculated. Don’t worry, I do not plan to harm you.”

Tony sat frozen until Law gave his wrist free. He pulled it back slowly, not sure what to do with the gentle gesture and the reassurance.

“Just keep him here,” Steve said and he made no attempt at all at this point to hide his anger.

If Law noticed a change or gave Steve even a second thought, he did not show it.

“Then let’s get down to it,” Tony suggested and smiled, playing up his own charm, “what do you want?” He was a second away from fluttering his eyelashes to get a rise out of Law, but it looked like that wouldn’t be necessary.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “This wasn’t something I’ve been planning until I saw the reservations for the beach resort. I know I’m interfering with your vacation plans. I will make up for it.”

Vacation? He hadn’t had any plans — nor really time to be away from Resilient long. He’d made room in his calendar for the mission — and Steve — only.

Tony kept every muscle in his face steeled, pretending he had any idea what Law was talking about. Tony hadn’t been planning any vacation — he had just gone along with Steve’s plan — setting a trap for Law that they had been caught in themselves.

“With all you’ve been through recently, you do deserve some time off, of course. I hope you’ll accept my honest offer of hospitality. We have nice beaches around here too. I’m sure you’ll be able to relax.”

“Here?” Steve asked tightly. He looked like a man ready to wring someone’s neck. 

“Why not?” Tony asked. He had pushed the rest of the desert away and fixed his eyes on Law and made sure to sound flirty: “Vacation sounds nice enough. Your overt way of trying to get to know me better, Charles? You’re going to be a gentleman and let me relax?”

The man’s eyes glazed over into dangerously dark onyx. “Patience is not usually on of my virtues, I admit. This life has spoiled me. I’m used to getting my way — and I would love to have my way with you. ”

The honesty surprised Tony, as did the naked look of hunger that was turned his way now. 

Wow.

It had been a while since an attractive man had so plainly lusted for him and been ready and be so direct about it. 

Holding someone prisoner sure helped with the candor.

He held the gaze, showing he wasn’t perturb at all by the possessive longing shown to him by someone who for now held him in his power. Under different circumstances, Tony thought he’d find it exciting. 

That Steve was watching every reaction didn’t help though.

Under different circumstances, Tony might have thrown and tried to flirt his way out of this one. But he didn’t want to sink any lower in Steve’s opinion — and as hopeless as his crush on Steve was, had always been and would always be, he really didn’t want Steve to go back to detesting him.

Unaware that Tony was holding his gaze, but had shifted his thoughts entirely towards the other man at the table, Law continued: “I had hoped to have you all to myself, but even though I had already decided to show some restraint and I hope you appreciate it. If I wanted to,” he pointed at the bracelet, “I could use this for much more than shutting down your armor and ability to alert the outside world to your location.”

There was no mistaking his meaning.

Even without completely turning to him, Tony could see Steve’s jaw set.

But Law ignored him completely. His attention was for Tony alone. His voice growing a husky whisper he continued: “Since I heard you’d be in Madripoor, since I knew I had finally caught your attention, I could think of very little else. It would be so easy to have you writhing beneath me, teach you to love my touch, beg me…” 

Tony was by no means easily flustered, but under the intense gaze he felt the words turn into images in his mind that made heat rise up in his cheeks.

“I’m sure someone who needs to be in control like you will greatly enjoy the idea…” Law said, and perhaps Tony had bitten his lip to not make a sound.

Then Steve’s fist came down on the table.

Tony nearly sprang back in his chair.

So did Law.

The moment was broken.

Law gave Steve a baleful look.

“Careful, Mr. Carter, I _am_ Law here. You could have walked away but now that you’re here, you better…”

“Make sure you do not threaten my boss,” Steve said with the anger of an erupting volcano.

“Tony doesn’t feel threatened,” Law said and turned back to Tony who wanted to laugh at the cockiness of this man who had just spoken about his ability to mind control to get Tony between the sheets. “You’re the one who…”

“Excuse Dan’s outburst,” Tony said and tried to keep his voice light, but gave Steve a near begging look. “He’s just doing what I hired him for. You were about to establish that you’re going to be a gentleman and not use mind control on me, I believe.”

With a final sour look at Steve, Law said, “As enticing as the thought of rushing this would be,” and turned back to Tony, “I want you to be yourself, see me for who I am. I checked, there’s no current girlfriend. I could find no trace of any recent boyfriends. I won’t be stepping on anybody’s toes by flirting with you. Spend a few days with me and I hope you’ll see what I have to offer.” 

_And after?_ Tony mused but didn’t dare ask for fear of tension rising again.

“It’s very sweet of you, Charles,” Tony said and tried not to sound mocking. “You realize I am Iron Man. So even if you are an attractive man and this will be a charming visit, it’s going to be…”

“Complicated,” Law said. “Just the way both of us like it. A problem that needs a solution.”

The honest excitement at the prospect of a possibly tumultuous affair had something of Sunset Bain in it. That was an ex Tony rarely regretted leaving in the past.

He wasn’t going to tell Law that, of course. 

With Extremis working away at the bracelet without apparent success, their best bet now was to play for time — and Law had as much as offered him that time.

A beep sounded and Law looked at his phone. Then he nodded to himself. 

“I’m sorry, Tony, Mr. Carter. I hope you enjoyed dinner. There’s some business I have to attend to now.”

Law used the napkin to delicately dab the corners of his mouth, then he smiled amiably at Tony and then looked at Steve who was still sitting with a furrowed brow and with his arms folded at the table, not for a moment taking his eyes off their kidnapper. 

Tony did not like the calculating look at all. Was Steve planning something that could tip the tense equilibrium right into violence, before Tony had access to the armor? 

Finally, Law got out of his chair turned back to Tony, who hadn’t himself moved yet, unsure what was expected of him now that their friendly dinner concluded. He was well aware that while the man was going out of his way to treat him like an honored guest, essentially they were prisoners here and Law expected Tony to be a very _amiable_ guest for the next few days — or however long he planned to keep him here for his own amusement. 

“I have arranged rooms for you, Tony,” Law explained with a charming smile. “I gather from our conversation that it’s too soon for me to invite you to mine. I hope they are to your liking.” 

Tony had to admit he _was_ quietly amused at the man’s cheek that he smiled a bit in spite of himself. 

“You can’t keep us here,” Steve said hotly and he and Tony shared a look over the table. 

To Tony he sounded just like Captain America right before he punched the Red Skull in his smug scarlet visage. To everyone else in the room though he looked and acted like the bodyguard of a superhero who thought he needed to assert the rules.

Tony looked from Steve to Law to gauge his reaction, saw the man’s gaze darken, gauged the general mood and raised an eyebrow at Steve, trying to tell him to tread lightly.

“I hadn’t planned on keeping you here at all, Mr. Carter. You, I’m sorry to say, I have no use for… For all I care we can throw you in the sea and let you find your way back to shore by your own strength. Good luck with that.”

Letting his own eyes flash with a noticeable shade of anger, Tony set his jaw and said: “He’s staying we me. I got him into this and if anything happens to him I will take it personally. You’ve made clear what you expect of me, and I’ll cooperate but Dan will stay where I can see him.”

So far, Tony had played along with the flirting and the “charming” conversation. This was the first time since this had started that he made a demand of his own.

Steve met his eyes. He quirked his lips.

Tony wished they’d talked about some less obvious ways of communicating silently when under scrutiny -- or in the hands of their enemies. He hadn’t expected things to get out of hand so quickly though. But with years of practice Steve and Tony could read each other well enough and it needed to _be_ enough right now. “How long do you plan on keeping us here? How long will the vacation last?” Tony asked, pulling his eyes away from “Dan” reluctantly before meeting Law’s eyes again head on. “Dan has family to get back to and I’m a busy man.”

“I know, Tony, I know” the man returned and smiled. “I’m sorry this is an inconvenience to you. I looked at the reservations made for you by Mr. Carter and I’ll return you in time for your flight back. I will make sure your stay will be as pleasant as possible. After all I want you to enjoy yourself here with me. There’s something I want you to see but it’s gotten late and you had an eventful day. I hope you will be impressed tomorrow.”

Then Law moved around the table and held out a hand for Tony. 

Not hesitating even for a second, Tony took the offered hand and let himself be pulled to his feet as if he was a young lady doted on by her gentleman. 

“You’ve gone quite a long way to impress me already,” he admitted.

“I hope to be memorable,” the man promised and for the second time since they’d met he had the guts to pull up Tony’s hand and press a closed lip kiss to his knuckles. Tony couldn’t help but stare and Law expected as much, piercing blue-grey eyes met his gaze over the kiss and held him locked in the moment.

When the man pulled away, and motioned for Tony to step forward, still playing the attentive host, Tony’s eyes darted at Steve quickly, flustered.

Steve’s jaw — not disguised at all by the enhanced masking technology — was so tense, it looked like he was ruining his teeth.

Was he angry at Law? Had he known the things about Tony Law had revealed through their dinner? Boyfriends? Was he surprised or put off by the idea that Tony enjoyed the flirting? Not that Tony was _really_ enjoying himself as much as he pretended. Law was attractive, fascinating even — but that last one you could also use for Victor von Doom, Gamora or Janet Van Dyne. The range was huge.

Right now, Tony was more interested in finding a way out of the predicament.

And if letting himself be charmed would made their stay here a little easier and less dangerous — then he would be damned to waste the chance.

“I regret that it's too early to offer you a stay in my bed,” Law drawled, “and you have made it a requirement to keep, Mr. Carter where you can see him it would be inappropriate anyway.”

“ _That_ would be inappropriate?” Steve asked through his teeth, earning himself a scathing look from Law.

“I would look for better help, Tony,” he said. “I think he may have just implied he wants to watch…”

Steve drew a deep breath and opened his mouth for an angry or exasperated retort. 

Free to walk over to Steve who had also come to his feet and had taken the first steps towards the door, Tony took the moment to grab him by the arm. To Law it would look like he was trying to get his employee in line. But it also gave them a moment for another silent exchange that Law couldn’t entirely observe. 

“Play along,” Tony mouthed.

“I am,” Steve mouthed back and Tony could see his shoulders visibly relaxing now that they were in closer communication. It was very much like Steve to react to the assurance of close proximity and for years they’d communicated with back claps and getting into each other’s space. But it would seem odd for a bodyguard. Too familiar. If he could have spoken freely at that moment he would have pointed out that Steve was behaving like a jealous lover more than a dutifully bodyguard who did this for his monthly paycheck.

“Richard,” Law called, “would you accompany the Xius? Three LMDs had lined up to march them down another corridor. A dark haired attendant stepped forward, surveying the scene carefully and then nodded his head. Only then did Tony realized he hadn’t heard any of the attendants speaking yet — they hadn’t even whispered among themselves. 

“I’m sorry to end this dinner so abruptly, Tony.” Law stepped up and squeezed his shoulder, sparing a final nasty look for Steve that immediately turned into an enigmatic smile for Tony.

He wanted to roll his eyes. What would Law do if he knew he was butting heads with Captain America who would never be interested in Tony like that?

Joke would be on him when Steve took him down.

“Follow me, please,” Richard said. 

“And don’t bother making trouble,” Law reminded them with a cheerful chuckle. “The Xius know how to enforce the rules around here.”

“Sir,” they all said at the same time, looking at Steve and Tony with identical expressions.

With a heavy sigh, Tony stepped out into the hallway first, joining the attendant who was supposed to give them the illusion of hospitality. Steve kept up with him, walking right at his side, watchful gaze trained forward.

“This may not be the retreat but it’s still a fortress,” he remarked when the were taken to an elevator to go deeper into the rock.

Richard nodded after he’d reluctantly surveyed Tony. “Won’t be easy to get out of here even for Iron Man. You’re Iron Man, aren’t you? Where are your Aenger friends?”

“On stan-by,” Tony shot back feeling the Extremis migraine more heavily now that no conversation was taking his mind off the steady hum of the code reporting failure after failure.

“Mr. Law’s up the hall,” Richard informed them casually when they were outside the elevator. 

“Hopefully that’s only because this is where the living quarters are.”

Richard shook his head. 

One of the Xius took te lead this time. “This way please,” she said fromally and led them in the opposite direction.

Before they arrived at the door, Richard said: “You’re rooms were prepared in a rush. I hope you find everything you need. If you need anything knock. Yvonne will be waiting outside.”

At least three Yvonnes by the look of it.

They were ushered in, Richard pressed a button at the front and light cascaded through all the rooms. There were at least three that Tony could see and they were standing in small living room with no windows but a big sofa. The door closed behind them closed with an unmistakable click of the lock.

“At least he didn’t order one of the LMDs to keep us company,” Steve snorted.

“I was more afraid they were going to split us up despite everything I said in there.” Tony knew he wouldn’t have been able to stop it. But Steve might have tried. And that would have been a mess. He walked around the sofa to see if he could see any windows anywhere. At a glance he couldn’t see any.

Steve was inspecting the door.

“We need to get out. Get our bearings,” he said.

“I’m sure one Ms. Xiu or another will be in here before you even touch the door,” Tony warned. 

Steve turned and Tony made a careful gesture to the disguise. A warning not to take it off yet.

Displeasure was written all over Steve’s face and even with the disguise, the lines of his true worry shone through quite real and Steve-like. “You think we’re being watched?”

“Oh, do not doubt it for a minute,” Tony said scratching his earlobe to indicate they might also be listened to and sat down on the comfortable sofa, legs crossed, ankle over knee. He leaned back, arm stretching out along the backrest, the other hand resting on his knee. He glanced covertly left and right, wondering if he could spot any devices, if there was any way to scramble them without an army of lovely LMDs storming the room.

“Can’t you tell?” Steve whispered in a low voice. Smart man that he was he had picked up on Tonys gesture and come to the same conclusion.

Law wouldn’t have watched them all day at the show and then stopped just because they were in his home.

Tony shook his head and held up the bracelet fastened around his wrist. “This has cut off my ability to scan _anything_. Charles _is_ a smart man. Makes me feel like I have both arms tied behind my back and am supposed to catch up.”

“You sound impressed.”

“Do I?” Tony asked and raised an eyebrow. He was in all honesty annoyed. Nobody should be able to get to Extremis like this and he really wanted to talk this through. But how were they going to talk if he couldn’t even get rid of a few bugs?

“Can you get rid of it?”

Tony shook his head then to make sure the cameras would catch it, then leaned more into the sofa, shrugging as if he was relaxing, trying to tell Steve that he honestly had no idea yet but would look into it as soon as he had found a blind spot. It had been a while since they’d had to rely on their communication skills.

Did they still know each other well enough to communicate without speaking?

“This was a bad idea,” Steve said, his eyes resting on Tony’s wrist and Tony wondered if he’d gotten the message.It was hard to tell. But Tony got from the apologetic look that Steve was apologizing for having dragged Tony here, explicitly asking him to serve as bait. They had both not realized how well that would work.

“I don’t know, could be worse, much worse.”

“How?”

“Come on. Nobody got hurt, yet. The room isn’t _exactly_ a prison cell… It’s pretty nice actually. This is nothing to worry about.” 

“Nothing to worry about?! Does this happen to you often enough to be nothing?” Steve turned on him and with the stormy expression the disguise flickered and Tony could see right through it at Steve’s anger. Tony realized the power pack for the image inducer wasn’t going to last indefinitely. He’d calculated they would need it for a day or two. It was going to last at least for another day.

“Being kidnapped? It happens occasionally. You know how this started, right?” He tapped his chest where the RT was shining through the fabric of his burgundy shirt, making a show of it for Steve as well as Law who would be surveying the feed at least intermittently. “You know why I became my own bodyguard in the first place?”

“That’s not what I mean! Someone so openly trying to…” Steve was shaking with anger.

Ah, there it was. He knew the whole byplay had ticked Steve off during dinner, but he’d tried to keep it together then.

“Fuck me?” Tony ended Steve’s question, just as Steve ended it with, “own you.”

Their eyes met and for a moment they just stared at each other. There was a hint of distress written over Steve’s slightly disguised face now that was just that step beyond worry.

“Does it bother you that he’s trying to…?” Tony started asking.

“I’m trying to protect you,” Steve said firmly. “It bothers me that he’s trying to coerce you and it seems like you’re used to it! That makes it so much worse. Nobody should be used to something like that and…”

“Coerce me?” Tony repeated Steve’s choice of word. Was that what Steve thought was going on? It was an underlying threat, Tony admitted, even though right now he felt Charles Law was specifically trying to avoid any hint of coercion. He was trying to woo, make Tony fall for him — only slightly hampered by the fact that he had to keep Tony here to even talk to him. As far as kidnappings went this one had been very civilized until the frank speech about “what I could do to you.” It was only Steve’s presence here that made Tony worry. Charles had already implied he had no use for him. And with all that Tony knew about him, he wouldn’t give killing Steve a second thought if he thought he was a nuisance. Not that Tony thought Steve would make _that_ easy or Law knew what he had coming.

“Yes, _coerce you_.But He was very upfront about what he wants from your. Graphically upfront. I’m not saying he’s in a position to do it... ” Steve huffed and narrowed his eyes. Until now the perfectly molded illusion had done a good job to make him look _foreign_ to Tony. But the angrier he got, the more like Steve the man in front of him looked, too. 

“I hope not,” Tony shot back. “You should know I can take care of myself.”

“It’s my job to protect you, Mr. Stark,” Steve nearly shouted and it looked like he had balled his fists but was back on track with the roles they were playing and ready to full slip back into the persona of the dutiful security detail if only for any observers. 

“I’m more worried about you, to be quite honest, _Dan_. If I had known anyone was actually going to make trouble of any kind, I would have brought along _an Avenger_ ,” he emphasized it obviously enough to make sure Steve got his real point: Tony _had_ a fellow Avenger with him and was as safe as he could be under the circumstances. They’d both been in worse scrapes, outrageously flirting villain or not.

“I can fight,” Steve said and narrowed his eyes, now obviously playing the role for the cameras more than Tony.

Tony nodded. “I’m not doubting you, Dan. You were right about why the Organization changed the way of doing business, why they were trying to step into the light. But this is a man who did his homework.” He tapped the RT again. “He goes a long way when he wants someone’s attention. He knows how to ground Iron Man. You’re the _unknown variable_ here.”

He drew the words out slowly to let Steve know that this was an ace up their sleeve but put Steve into a precarious position. Someone like Charles Phillip Law didn’t liked being in control. He was a gambler, but one who left nothing to chance.

You met the type often among SEOs and superheroes. Tony himself wasn’t a stranger to that mindset.

And here was a “bodyguard” here who had not been part of that gambler’s scheme.

As long as ‘Dan’ could be used as a pawn in the long game Law was playing, he would try and use him. If ‘Dan’ turned out to be a problem — well, Law had already implied that he knew how to let people vanish forever. He hadn’t said it involved killing, but if there was no way out at all of the retreat — then surely someone had to try to escape before... Right now, Tony hoped Law was too interested to stay in Tony’s good graces to try anything. But even if he changed his mind about that, they had the upper hand because Law had no idea he had kidnapped not one but two Avengers.

Turning his face away from where he suspected one of the cameras to b, he muttered under his breath: “Glad you pushed me to take some time off for this mission just in case. You were right. We might need it. Pepper would kill me if I got stuck here and hadn’t left her with a warning.”

“This wasn’t why I asked,” Steve muttered and looked at his hands to mask the moving of lips.

Tony was left to stare at him, trying to decipher what that was supposed to mean. 

He couldn’t ask though, could he? 

_Dear bodyguard, why did you tell your boss to take time off for a mission you organized?_

Steve finally moved away from the door, looked around the room, peeked into the adjacent bedroom. “You take the bed, of course, Mr. Stark. I’ll sleep out here.”

“The bed is big enough for two.” 

After the words were out of his mouth both of them looked uncomfortably over and through the open door into the bedroom to confirm Tony was right. The bed _was_ big enough for two and with Law’s frank declaration of interest the implications of why spacious bed would come in handy were obvious.

“Oh my god,” Tony said and rolled his eyes dramatically and made sure to speak loud enough for any bugs to get him loud and clear. “Perhaps I’ll be safer on the sofa. This is how the worst bodice ripper novels start, isn’t it?” 

Steve’s grin didn’t reach his eyes. “Not my genre, but probably, yes. You will still be safer over there. I’ll be between you and the main door in case anyone comes in.”

“I can...”

“I know. I am your bodyguard, and I take my job very seriously.” Steve said smugly. “Keep in mind that I’m a lot more hard headed than the one you pretended to have.”

“Oh, I am quite aware,” Tony shot back. “And I didn’t pretend to have that bodyguard, I _was_ that bodyguard. I still am that bodyguard.”

He had that bodygard stored in his _bones_. The problem was activating him.

“Not without juice.” Steve pointed at the RT as if he knew exactly why Tony as huffing in frustration. 

Effectively out of a good argument, Tony shrugged. “Alright, you can sit in front of the door, while I look around the posh prison, happy?”

Steve nodded and had the audacity to say: “You’re the boss, Tony.”

 _Sure, Commander. Everyone listens to my command,_ Tony thought wryly and stepped along the wall toward the bedroom to look into the wardrobe and on the way figure out where all the bugs and cameras had been placed so they could avoid them better.

It was going to be a long night if Steve insisted to be his protector. Tony wasn’t going to let him sleep in front of the door like a guard dog.

Tony opened the wardrobe, wasn’t surprised to see things from designer jeans to Tom Ford suits, all in Tony’s size, all in Tony’s style. He closed the wardrobe again, feeling put off by the sight of all the clothes that could be his. Someone had taken his measurements or snooped around one of his apartment. Or — more likely — used the recent upheaval after the skrull war to get their hands on his belongings. On the bed, neatly folded was a set of a wine red silk pajamas. 

He nearly growled, but continued his exploration into the bathroom. Towels, toothpaste, shampoo and shower gel — his favorite brand, of course — no razor or blow-drier.

“At least,” he shouted, “I think there’s no camera in the bathroom.”

“I am relieved to hear about this feet of restraint and decency,” Steve shouted back, happy to be overheard in the living room.

Tony stepped back into the bedroom. The red silk pyjamas jumped out at him again. He stared at them for a moment, then picked them up, deposited them on an armchair in the corner and started to methodically strip the bedspread, gathered the blankets and pillows to carry them to the living room area.

Steve was standing in front of the door. Obviously he had started the exploration of the area, also checking for the obvious surveillance equipment. He startled when Tony appeared in the door, hidden behind the soft burden of downy bedding.

“How about we sleep out here?” Tony suggested.

Not hiding his amused grin, Steve nodded and helped him with the pillows.

At least, this would be familiar.

Even though — for obvious reasons — they hadn’t fallen asleep on the Avengers sofa together while talking for years.

“He could have left us with a TV,” Steve suggested and Tony wondered if Steve had also been thinking of Avengers movie nights just now.

“Why? Is CSI on?”

“Don’t tell me Grey’s Anatomy’s still running?”

They shared a grin, despite the dire situation they were in and settled down on the sofa, in for a long night.

* * *

He woke up, feeling like he was wrapped in a warm cocoon, the blanket much softer than the one he had down in the workshop. Where else had he fallen asleep sitting up?

“Tony?”

Steve.

He sat up. 

He’d fallen asleep with his head on resting on Steve’s shoulder.

Well, that must have made a nice picture for Law.

“Hi,” he said and came face to face with “Dan.” 

At least the image inducer was holding.

His fingers itched to inspect it, make sure it had enough juice, but then they would be giving the game away.

“Slept well?” Steve asked.

Tony nodded and realized the lights were still on in the room and he had no way of telling what time it was because there was no window.

He straightened his back and sat up straighter, yawning. They had fallen asleep like this countless times in Avengers Mansion — long before they’d been at each other’s throats.

“Did you sleep at all?” he asked after giving Steve a critical look.

Steve shook his head.

“You watched the door?” Tony guessed. They could have taken turns, of course.

“You were tired,” Steve said. “You needed the rest.”

“Thanks,” he said and felt uncomfortably reminded of Law calling this a vacation. “Yeah, we’ve both been busy recently. Never a quiet minute.”

Steve gave him a lopsided half-smile. 

Yesterday they hadn’t been able to make than whispered conversation. It had been comfortable and warm and at some point Tony had drifted off while Extremis had run through a new attempt of rewriting that control bracelet. With the headache he had needed the rest.

Steve should have taken the chance to rest too.

Whatever Law had planned, Tony felt reasonably sure he wouldn’t have barged in on them to ravage Tony like the kidnapped girl in a spicy pulp novel. And even if he had, Steve would have woken right away. From experience Tony knew there was no use arguing with Steve when he had set his mind on a task — even though Tony thought staying up all night was a little over the top for a B grade Bond villain. They both knew what it looked like when they argued, so he said nothing.

An unlocking noise drifted over from the door, putting both of them on alert.

Then Yvonne Xiu stood in the room again, surveying them with the same cold stare. The door fell back shut behind her, though not before Tony had counted three more in the hallway. 

“Mr. Law asks you to join him for breakfast.”

Tony looked at Steve questioningly, but pushed from his comfortable cocoon of blankets.

“I will wait until you’re ready,” she declared after Tony had gotten to his feet. He glared at her, although he knew she was only following orders.

“I feel she’s saying I don’t look like sunshine and rainbows yet,” Tony told Steve.

“You always look good to me,” Steve said and grinned.

It wasn’t exactly out of character for Steve to say something like that — Jan had joked about their mutually exchanged compliments all the time during Avengers meetings — but Law might read it as something else coming from “Dan.” 

“Thank you, Dan.”

They stood in the living room in front of the Xiu LMD trying to decide what to do. 

Steve’s expression had all signs of a breaking storm again, but Tony took him by the elbow and said. “We’ll get ready.”

“You won’t take a shower where…”

“It’s skin,” he hissed. “We wound up naked in… Whatever,” he whispered. “Not taking a shower. Let’s see if we can find a clean shirt and if you’re so concerned for my modesty you can hold a towel around me while I dress.”

Steve was about to give him an equally hissed retort, when Tony whispered: “I’m more concerned about you and the…”

He motioned over his own head.

They hadn’t really planned for Steve to be under scrutiny in the bathroom. 

Realizing that it could be a predicament if they wanted to keep it up, Steve nodded. “Alright, boss. But this has to stop.”

He might be referring to the kidnapping, but Tony had a feeling Steve was giving him an ultimatum for how long they were going to keep Steve’s identity a secret. 

“I know,” Tony admitted. “I’m not a fan of this vacation resort either.”

When he knew he was half hidden in the closet he muttered. “Give me a few hours.”

Steve stepped up behind him, pretending to look over his shoulder at the clothes. It was a little too intimate for boss and bodyguard, but right now the only thing that mattered not being overheard. 

“Progress?”

“Uh-huh,” he promised. Extremis was pinging him back every time a layer had been analyzed, a set-back had led to new understanding, or a backdoor had been found. He was getting this thing off even if the migraine would return with a vengeance.

He found a silken dress shirt that fit perfectly and pulled out a different button downs that all were a little too tight for Steve. Then they washed up over the vast sink, brushed their teeth and Tony made sure his hair was combed and he looked the part of charming kidnapping victim.

This time Ms. Xiu had no objections and together with the other LMDs took them up that same corridor to the elevator. 

To Tony’s surprise their journey did not lead back to the room where they had dinner. 

They descended lower into the structure and he felt uneasy about it until the doors slid away and sunlight fell in. The small cave they’d arrived in led outside and the sound of gentle waves greeted them.

With a few steps they were in a small garden on a well kept lawn only feet away from the beach. 

Law was waiting for them at a small table. 

Even from here, Tony realized, this time there was only one additional chair. He felt Steve stiffen.

“Good morning, Tony,” Law greeted and got up to reach for his hand. “I gather you slept well. You look splendid.”

“Than you,” Tony said carefully. Something had changed in Law’s manner and Tony knew it was in regards to Steve. 

The attendant from yesterday stood by Law’s chair. “Richard, the guard is eating with the servants.”

Tony wasn’t going to have that. “I said he stays where I can see him.”

“Yes,” Law answered. “Don’t worry.” He motioned towards a few steps that led up to a terrace. “He’ll be up there and he can keep an eye on you all he wants. You’ll be able to see him from here.”

“Keeping to the letter of my demand.” If not the spirit.

Law inclined his head.

“It’s alright, Dan. I’ll give you a signal if I need help,” he said and laughed to make it sound like a desperate joke.

The way Steve’s eyes flashed he knew exactly what signal to wait for — the one that meant there was no longer any need for the game of pretend.

“It’s a lovely morning, isn’t it, Tony?” Law switched back to his kinder persona as soon as Steve followed Richard up the stairs to the terrace without another word. 

“It is,” Tony admitted and waited for Law to pull out his chair for him again.

“I hope you enjoy the coffee.”

It smelled like dark inky heaven and he was going to admit as much. He smiled, sat down, noting with a sinking feeling that he’d been placed with his back towards the terrace. So he deliberately turned once, made sure to catch Steve’s eyes and nod after he’d arrived at the top and then turned back to Law, and let his shoulders visibly relax. 

“It’s a nice spot to have breakfast.”

Law rewarded his effort with a smile.

* * *

For the next hour or so, Tony did his best not to look over his shoulder to make sure Steve was there. Instead he focused on keeping the conversation flowing while part of his mind was working away at the control bracelet.

After he’d realized Tony wasn’t invested in anything beyond coffee when it came to breakfast, he offered him a walk on the beach.

Tony used the walk to confirm that Steve was standing on the terrace overlooking the lawn and beach, arms propped up on the railing. One of the attendants — clearly recognizable by the white blazer they were wearing — leaned on the railing with his back to Tony. He was talking with Steve while LMDs were guarding the stairs and the entrance to the elevator.

Eyes trained on Tony, Steve immediately noticed him looking.

Over the distance it was hard to exchange significant looks and Tony quickly had to turn away again, when Law asked: “Did you like your rooms?”

“They’re very nice,” Tony lied. In truth, he hadn’t given them much of a thought. Like a non-descript hotel room none of it had left much of an impression. 

“Would you enjoy a swim?”

Law gestured to the sea.

“Not afraid I’ll just swim away?” Tony joked.

“I wouldn’t go too far out. The currents are dangerous.”

Tony suspected he would say that even if it weren’t true.

“Do you want to see my workshop?”

That surprised him a little, enough to let a line of code slip through his fingers. The control bracelet zapped him hard enough to intensify the headache. He smiled right through it. “A workshop? You work on the designs yourself?”

For some reason that hadn’t occurred to him.

Obviously, Law enjoyed his astonished look.

“I’m not an engineering genius,” he said, “but it’s what I brought to the family business.”

“And you’d show me?”

“If it makes you look at me like that,” Law said and grinned. 

Tony wasn’t hiding his interest. Not just because Law could be right out interesting and pleasant — but also because he wanted to know all he could about this place.

A friendly hand landed on his arm. “I plan on impressing you all day.”

“That sounds positively dirty,” Tony pointed out and had no trouble to make his next smile flirty. 

He had a feeling that if Law had simply approached him at a party, Tony would have been charmed and wouldn’t have given a second thought about giving him his room number. And there was a scary thought.

Would someone like Law have been able to worm his way into Tony’s life if he hadn’t been so keen on letting Tony see the brilliance of his criminal existence?

_You dated Madame Masque and Sunset Bane… not to mention that complicated thing you had with Ty Stone. Remember how that ended? He nearly fried your brain._

Nervously, he looked towards the terrace where Steve was still watching him.

His throat went dry with the sudden realization that he hadn’t been looking at anyone like he looked at Steve for months. The idea that the world had lost Captain America — and had gotten him back _again_ — was too painful, too unbelievable to grasp. It made his heart ache to think about how living through that must have fet.

 _There’s the man that can destroy you with one word_ , he thought. _And he’s here watching you flirt with a criminal he wants to take down. Isn’t that perfect?_

Tony had never been ashamed for his love life, the way flirting came easily. When he loved, he loved and there was no shame in it. Only Steve could make him feel like he needed to be better, be above all that, be worthy of Captain America’s friendship. And _that_ as much as anything else that had gone on at the time had led to them fighting each other. He didn’t need to remember all the details to _know_ exactly what had driven him that far. It wasn’t the first time he’d taken control, made the decisions he knew Steve shouldn’t be forced to make. 

Beside him Law snapped his fingers, pulling Tony effectively out of his thoughts and stirring the migraine, and motioned to the attendant above and then the LMDs to escort Steve down.

Relieved, Tony realized that Law was keeping to his promise to keep Steve in sight without Tony needing to remind him.

“He’s very protective of you,” Law remarked while he watched Steve wald down the stairs. “A little overinvested. I do hope I was right to assume there were no current strings holding you from enjoying my company.”

Steve had arrived at the bottom of the stairs and Law motioned for Tony to walk with him a few steps before the others, keeping the illusion they were alone.

With a frown, Tony said. “He takes his job very seriously, that’s all.”

“There’s nothing between you?”

“We’re not lovers if that’s what you’re implying.”

“Glad to hear it,” Law said with the edge of a blade ready to strike down its enemies. 

Would Law strike out at anyone Tony got close to? Had he only approached him like this because he thought he had no rivals?

Tony couldn't read Law well enough to decide where exactly he would draw the line.

The workshop was in the lower level and it wasn’t as big as Tony had imagined with all the space available. If this had been his place the workshop would have taken up a whole level. It was stuffed with computers, a holographic drawing board and technological parts were sitting on shelves and tables.

At a glance, Tony could tell the place held nothing that would give away future plans.

He huffed and then grinned. “You’re a cautious man,” he remarked.

“If I were you wouldn’t be here at all ad I’d be pining for you from afar.”

“You don’t see like the passively pining type,” Tony remarked and avoided looking at Steve.

Pining was something Tony could do very well from close-by.

“That’s why I’m not very cautious,” Law answered and let Tony look at the equipment.

There was really nothing to give away what the man was planning next. There were two robotic arms that had been built not stolen or bought and he studied them, let his hands glide over them, “You’re assembling things here?” 

“Rarely,” Law returned, his eyes glued to Tony’s hands reverently touching his machines. There was that pleased expression that was only a minor step away from pride.

Then Tony saw it.

His armor.

It had been transported here.

He turned back to Law, unsure of what the man expected from him now.

“It’s not the only armor of yours that made it into my collection.”

“What are you doing with them?”

“So far I looked at repulsor technology. I scanned the circuitry of the older one I have. But the armors… I simply keep them because they’re yours. If you’d ask me to return them… I could be persuaded.”

Tony turned around, realized they were standing toe to toe suddenly. Law’s eyes glittered with mirth and expectation. 

There was nowhere else to look than him.

“What would it take to persuade you?” 

Even he was surprised at how breathless he sounded.He blamed it on the surprise and the fact that Law was an attractive man.

Warm laughter greeted his question and there was no hint of mockery in it. The sound sent pleasant shivers down his spine. He could feel the man’s breath on his cheeks — and he knew what he wanted to ask for.

Law took his hand, and Tony knew he was blushing even before lips were pressed to the back of his hand again. He was staring at his own palm now, the only thing between him and Law. Then Law let their hands sink and said: “I’d ask for a kiss if I thought you’d mean it. I’m sure we can come to an agreement later.”

Tony had to fight to wallow the knot in his throat while Law turned away from him with glittering eyes. 

When he moved away, it revealed Steve standing by the door between two LMDs with balled fists.

Feeling quite off balance, Tony followed Law back out and silently vowed that he would find his way out of this damn bracelet. Then he’d not only get them out, but also ask nicely to have his armors returned.

* * *

An hour later he found himself comfortably loungin on a luxurious oversized beach couch. Law had decided to go for a swim. Tony suspected he had done so to shuck his pants in front of Tony and give him a show.

A shame that this attractive man had to be a criminal. He could have been good company… in any sense of the word.

“How are you enjoying your vacation so far?”

Tony watched him, not hiding it at all, as he walked from the waves in nothing but the swimming trunks, the salty water glistening on his bronze skin in the sunlight.

“Enjoying the sun,” Tony lied. He was getting uncomfortable in his suit pants and the button down silk shirt. He’d shed his shoes and had the bare feet up on the beach couch. Sand and salt were getting everywhere to the point where his clothes felt dirty, stiff and itchy. A dip in the ocean sounded like bliss.

But he let his head fall back, closed his eyes and pretended to enjoy the sun some more while he was actually working away at their way out. That’s what he’d been doing for the past hour and his host was happy enough to believe Tony had started to relax around him.

Law had asked him twice if he was suffering from a headache, suspicious of Tony’s ability to break his control. Every time Tony had sidetracked him with fast paced conversation and bright smiles. Years of running a company and navigating society while hiding your heart condition and hero identity had taught him how to function when a part of you wanted to curl up and cry from the pain.

Steve was waiting for his breakthrough and he wouldn’t let him down — because one way or another they couldn’t keep up the charade for another twenty four hours. The energy of Steve’s image inducer would run out before that.

They were lucky that nobody had detected the thing until now.

He knew without looking that Steve was perched on the terrace above, watching their every move — waiting for a sign from Tony that they were ready to go. Last time he had looked up Steve had been talking to that attendant again — Richard?

Was he asking his own questions to get all he needed to take down Law’s organization? Was the attendant being friendly?

 _PROCESSING…_ Extremis reported. _DISABLED LAYER 47._

He was getting there.

The solution was minutes away.

 _PROCESSING…_ Extremis told him. It had found a backdoor to completely bypass the next two layers, but could only run it now that layer 47 had been shut down.

Minutes.

It would be a relief.

The headache was a little too much.

“You should get rid of the shirt and take a dip. You’ll get a heatstroke if you stay in the sun like this.” 

“You just want me out of my clothes,” Tony accused.

“Of course,” Law admitted freewly, “but first of all I want you to relax.”

“I am as relaxed as possible. I don’t get spirited away like this every day.”

“I would hope,” Law joked.

_LAYER 51. SECURITY LAYER. PROCESSING._

He pressed his eyes closed, listening to the code singing in his mind, fighting its way through layer and layer of control disk. He just had to get close enough to its security mechanisms to shut it down.

Damn, the headache was getting unbearable.

“Tony?”

“Yes,” he answered without hesitation, grateful that his voice didn’t waver.

“Your face went pale. Perhaps you should drink something.”

“Perhaps I should get out of the sun.” He sat up, too fast and nearly doubled over.

Law helped him to his feet.

 _PENDING,_ Extremis informed him and his stomach turned.

He stumbled along with Law into the shadow, back to the table on the lawn.

Someone had stacked it with drinks and glasses. 

Law poured him some mineral water and made sure he took a few sips.

“Sit down.”

He did without protest, feeling better already

 _PENDING_.

Crouching before him, Law took the glass from his hands, put it back on the table. Then he took his hand. 

He looked worried.

Tony’s head was spinning with the pain and the best thing would have been to look for a dark place, curl up and close his eyes. The sun wasn’t helping. His ears were ringing.

“Sir,” someone called from up on the terrace, “the chopper arrived.”

Chopper.

His ears weren’t ringing. He was hearing the chopper.

“We’ll be up in a moment.”

“Up?”

Law pointed. “You’re feeling better?”

He nodded, sure now that he was minutes away from breaking through the bracelet’s control. 

“Where are we going?” Tony asked and he was just distracted enough to entirely care. Relief washed over him when they arrived at the top of the stairs and he came face to face with “Dan” though.

Worriedly, Steve stepped towards him right away — but one of the LMDs stopped him.

More and more it became obvious that Law had ordered them to be kept apart.

Behind their captor’s back Steve raised an eyebrow. Tony held up a hand and signed counting backwards then mouthed: “Soon.”. 

At this point, Tony was getting sick of looking at Steve and seeing the fake mustache, but seeing it flickering now still sent a spike of worry through him. The batteries were running out.

They were surrounded by two attendants and four LMDs.

Now two more Xiu’s were carrying crates down from where the chopper had landed.

“How do you keep anyone from seeing this island?” Tony asked absent-mindedly.

“It’s not always been easy. The tech you provided will go a long way to help with it in the future,” Law answered. “Bring these to the workshop. We have everything to assemble the new Life Model Decoys.”

“You’re building her over and over again. How many of her are there?”

“You know why I can’t give you that information.”

“Running on the same personality?”

“A network. She functions like a swarm.”

That was a scary thought and something Tony needed to look into.

He followed Law up to the landing patch, not sure why they were bothering to go up there. Only when he’d reached the top did he realized the rest of them hadn’t followed.

The chopper was a small stealth version that Tony had never seen before. The design looked like it had been developed for an unmanned drone and then remodified.

“I didn’t bring you here to look at the transport.” Law waved him over. He had walked to the edge of the landing patch. “From here you have a nice view of the island.

Cautiously, Tony stepped to the man’s side.

Around them was nothing but ocean. He tried to look for other islands, for he hint of a shore in the distance. Either the day wasn’t clear enough or there was nothing. 

“That’s where you arrived?”

“Why didn’t the flying car land here?”

“I like it closer to the garage.”

“You keep a garage on an island without streets?”

From here he could see to the edges of the small island. It was just big enough to have the size of the Avengers Mansion ground and most of it was covered in the rock formation that hid the different levels of the complex. One side of the island was covered in trees and from up here he could hear birds calling and singing.

“You do look impressed,” Law said satisfied. 

Not with the size of the island. The realization that this couldn’t be the retreat had sunken in though. “What is this really? Your office? Your second apartment?”

“Call it a vacation home.”

The idea was preposterous even to him.

How big was the retreat then?

“It could be yours,” Law suggested.

“Mine,” Tony repeated. He found that to be an even more preposterous idea.

“Stay with me,” Law said, “come back to me whenever you want.”

“You’ll let me go now?”

“Oh no,” Law said. “Not yet.”

Tony hadn’t really expected it but he wanted Law to know he was getting impatient to leave. “I think I’d rather you tell me what I have to do to leave with the armor and…” 

Well, his “bodyguard”.

“I already told you,” Law said and grinned. The hungry look was back.

The next moment Law was in his space again — close enough to grab his hand tightly, close enough to lean in…

Tony felt momentarily dizzy, realized that the control disk had been activated from outside and that Law, growing impatient, was trying to help his case along by making Tony lean back, lips parted… He tried to turn away but couldn’t.

 _Bastard_ , he thought.

A hand settled at the small of his back to pull him in.

Another hand stroked his cheek, his jaw,

_PROCESSING, Extremis informed him. They were still at least a few minutes away from breaking the hold._

_“This will be a memorable vacation. Much better than whatever you had planned, I promised.”_

_He tried to say he hadn’t planned anything when Law tried to close the final gap between them and steal a kiss. Tony gasped, helplessly fighting the control disk at that moment. Law’s breath tickled his cheek and Tony closed his eyes, expecting to be kissed against his will…_

_Then Law’s body was ripped away._

_Tony stumbled with the force of it — hold on his mind and body broken for the moment, will return. Then Steve’s back was in front of him, backwards stretch arm catching him before he could fall._

_He heard Law hiss: “What…?”_

_“ _I_ planned that vacation_,” Steve spat. “And you stay the hell away from him.”

Law was on his knees. Steve had grabbed him and pushed him away hard enough to make him fall, and then had pushed Tony behind him, as if he expected an attack.

Behind them Tony heard running feet.

Steve must have broken free to get here.

“I’m going to drown you for this, Carter,” Law threatened. “I have no use for rivals.”

Two LMDs arrived at the top of the stairs. They would have to do something about this.

Their cover was about to be blown anyway. And frankly his patience with Law had run out after he had against all promises used the control disk on him lie this.

But Tony processed the most confusing information first. “You were planning a vacation?”

“It was supposed to be a surprise.” Steve huffed without turning, still shielding Tony who was steadying himself by leaning against his back.

“That you’re taking some time off?”

Tony still didn’t get what it had to do with himself..

“What kind of bodyguard are you?” asked Law and it sounded like he was asking Steve about the vacation again. When Tony looked around Steve he realized Law was worriedly looking at an LMD whose arm was hanging at an odd angle.

Yeah, there was little chance that their cover would hold now.

Steve reached up and with one sweep pulled the nodes of the image inducer from his face.

Law stared at him, livid. “Commander Steve Rogers, I presume. This was a SHIELD set-up? You used Tony to get to me?”

Ignoring Law completely, Steve turned. “I planned a vacation for you and me,” Steve said and grabbed Tony by the shoulders. “I wanted to tell you after the conference. I wanted to tell you… I..”

Tony ripped himself from his grip. His eyes widened because _he_ hadn’t done it. He _wanted_ to hear this, goddammit.. 

“Tony,” Law ordered. “To the chopper. We’re leaving. Your return has to be postponed indefinitely.”

Steve and Tony realized at the exact same moment that Law had taken control again — and Steve’s face showed _outrage_.

Tony gnashed his teeth ready to fight the command, but the headache worsened. Extremis sang in his blood, ready for the final assault. He stumbled with a painful, contested steps towards the chopper.

The first LMD reached Steve at that moment, arm drawn back for a punch.

 _He has no shield_ , Tony thought. _I have to…_

He strained against the control but stumbled with another step towards Law who was staring at him with all that violent need again, silently urging him to follow his command.

 _Fuck this_ , he thought and stopped.

An LMD grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him forward.

Law realized his control wasn’t complete.

There was a scuffle.

Then Extremis informed Tony with a simple, _SUCCESS_ that they were free. 

The bracelet opened and fell to the ground.

Law saw it, narrowed his eyes, before Tony fell to one knee and gasped.

Behind him Steve called out his name.

Things around him slowed down with all the information flooding back in at once. The armor stirred. He let a gauntlet bleed out and ordered: “JARVIS? You there? Give me my exact location.”

They were in the middle of nowhere. Pacific Ocean all around them 80 miles south of Madripoor — closer to Australia than he would have estimated.

An LMD had reached Law who had dashed for the chopper, shielding him. They were trying to get away.

Tony ended that attempt at running with one aimed repulsor blast, smoke rising from the chopper.

Then a hand grabbed him. He was about to fight when strong arms settled in a hug around his shoulders. Steve. It was Steve.

It was okay.

That was fine.

“Are you okay?” they both asked at the same time.

“What were you thinking?” Tony asked. “A few minutes more and I would have had it anyway.”

“He tried to _kiss_ you,” Steve spat as if Tony had been stabbed.

“I _know_ but that…” 

He never got to finish his sentence.

Steve kissed him. His brain, the armor, Jarvis… it all shut down with the shock of it.

“Did you just…?”

“I was trying to ask you out!” Steve huffed. “I missed you. I… thought… I… I wanted to spend time with you, make sure you knew we were okay after… after everything and _then_ I wanted to ask you out… I’m sorry if this...”

Tony was about to cut off the apology with a kiss. Perhaps this wall a dream, perhaps his brain had been fried and...

A shot fired and Steve pushed him down.

“Masquerading as bodyguard,” Law spat. “Should have had you killed in Madripoor.”

“Wouldn’t have worked then either,” Tony huffed and watched Steve throw a gun like a well aimed projectile at one of the Xius.

“Armor,” Steve ordered. “We’ll talk as soon as this is over. You can tell me to leave you alone or...”

He grabbed Steve by the arm this time, leaned in to kiss him. How could Steve be the one thinking _Tony_ wouldn’t be interested?

After a brief contact, he pulled away, enjoyed Steve’s stunned expression that softened his face.

Bleeding edge flooded out of his bones, gold undersuit first, then the armor parts. “Aye, sir,” he huffed, catching the next LMDs fist before it could hit Steve in the face, and firing blast to hold back two more.

“How many of them are there?” Steve huffed.

Tony wasn’t about to tell him. If Jarvis was correct, then there were 24 signatures on the stairs and another 34 had just come online inside the complex.

 _Fun_ , Tony thought.

The last thing he saw of Law, before all hell broke loose round him, was him running to the edge of the cliff, jumping. For a moment he thought they’d driven him to desperation — but the flying limousine came up, caught him on the hood. A Xiu LMD was leaning out one door to help him.

Tony tried to rise and follow but got tangled in the LMD bodies.

Steve cursed behind him.

Law gave him a final salute.

Then he was gone — but the real fight was only staring.

“More LMDs waking up,” JARVIS informed him and added: “Warning. Detonation in three, two, one.”

A bomb went off in the lower level of the building. It shook under their feet, LMDs still piling over each other to get to them.

“Tony?” Steve shouted, “tell SHIELD where we are. We could use reinforcements.”

Tony did the next best thing.

He grabbed Steve by the hand and flew them right out of the fray.


	3. Epilog — A More Permanent Team-Up and a Real Vacation

The biggest revelation was still to come. Steve let clean up be handled by his agent, handed over everything to Agent 13 and her team. “I planned this vacation and we’re going,” he told Tony. “More than ever we should spend some time together, figure out…”

“Yes,” Tony agreed so quickly before Steve could end the thought that he sounded like the overwhelmed person who had just accepted their lover’s proposal. 

He was still surprised when he realized what kind of vacation Steve had organized.

“The honeymoon suite?”

The Madripoor Royal was a five star beach resort. Tony walked into their suite with a goofy grin on his face. All of this was still hard to believe.

Steve set down the one suitcase they’d brought and closed the door behind them.

“It’s not the Sovereign Hotel,” Steve apologized, “but I really can’t afford that. I wanted you to be comfortable.”

“This is better,” Tony said quickly. _Honeymoon suite with Steve,_ would be perfect anywhere. It was such an incredible thought that Tony was still not quite sure he wasn’t dreaming all this.

Beyond the open door of the terrace he could hear the waves of the ocean. This time there was no headache, no kidnapping, no flirty criminal — just Steve.

He turned around, met his eyes. Steve had barely walked into the room yet.

“Shy suddenly?” Tony asked and wriggled his eyebrows. “I can see the bed from here and it’s absolutely made for honeymooners.”

Steve’s lips curved into a restrained smile.

“I had planned all of this out and now it’s all over the place,” he admitted. “I thought we’d team-up, then I’d ask you to dinner, tell you how much I’d missed you…”

His voice broke.

“We hurt each other good,” Tony acknowledged, feeling the familiar fear that made him awkward around Steve. Too much had happened... 

Steve nodded. “Lets not do it again,” he suggested and walked over to wrap Tony in his arms. Until now Steve had been very careful with him, making sure he didn’t touch Tony without permission. He’d apologized profusely for the first kiss, despite Tony’s insistence that he’d loved it. His heart still sped up thinking about it. 

His arms wrapped around Steve’s body in a hug. “I thought you were angry at me for playing along with Law’s game. I didn’t realize you were...”

“I was mad — but not at you,” Steve admitted. “The things he said… And you were so calm about it. You should never have to… God, Tony I would never have asked you to come on this mission and lure him out if I had know _that_ was what he wanted.”

“I know, but then I would have missed out on camping out in the living room wrapped in blankets and seeing your jealous rage.” 

Steve huffed into his hair.

They had barely had time to discuss things, figure this thing between them out. After their first near argument about Law and their time on the island Steve had conceded that Tony hadn’t been helpless just because he’d been without armor. They’d kissed and talked about the vacation plans Steve had made — and been very professional in wrapping up the mission. 

Law had gotten away, of course. All evidence they could have found had burned out. But the attendants — Richard White, Sonya Delaney and Carlos Estevez — were all more than willing to talk. Turned out that people who ended up buying their way into the retreat but couldn’t afford a first class membership ended up “working” for Law in other ways. Not all were happy with it, but there was nowhere to run to usually.

“Help me relax?” Tony asked and Steve raised an eyebrow, watched Tony sit down on the edge of the bed. 

“I still can’t believe…”

“That you want me,” Tony finished. “I’m the one who can’t believe it. You have no idea how long I…”

Steve was over there and on him in an instant, pushing him down with a vehemence that seemed to surprise them both. “Stop me,” he whispered, “whenever you feel…”

He pulled Steve into a kiss to shut him up, allowed all the tension, the relief, the upheaval of the last two days to bleed into it, allowed the disbelieve to unravel and all the love he felt to fuel it. Steve had his hands on his buttocks, pushed him further up the bed with pure strength. Tony whelped in surprise and then laughed, excited.

They ended up like that, panting, staring into each other's eyes, watching every reaction they could draw from the other, with touches, movements and kisses.

* * *

After the shower, Tony ordered room service and enjoyed the view of Steve clad in nothing but his boxer shorts unpacking their suitcase.

By the time there was a knock on the door, Steve had dressed in a white and downy bathrobe.

“I don’t think we ordered…” 

“On the house,” a voice answered.

“What is it?”

“Our food,” Steve said and then held up the bottle of grape juice — the same brand Law had served them.

Tony got up immediately. A rose lay across the try and a card beside it.

Steve gritted his teeth and opened it before Tony could stop him.

“I hope I left a lasting impression. Can’t wait to see you again. Charles.”

He pulled the card from Steve’s fingers and ripped it in two. “I hope he’ll enjoy the message I sent him,” Tony said and smirked when Steve met his eyes.

“You sent him…?”

“Well, not so much a message as setting one or two of the people he stole from on his trail. I doubt Victor von Doom will be subdued by flirting.”

“Neither will Tony Stark,” Steve said with a satisfied smirk.

“Ohhhh,” Tony said, “I don’t know. I could be persuaded by the right person.” He winked, happen when Steve nearly pounced on him, food and note forgotten. “Let’s stay in,” Tony whispered in his ear, hands tangled in his ear. “Let’s wrap up in blankets and talk all night…”

Steve sighed his agreement against his skin.

They still had to face reality after this vacation. But there was no room for fear or apprehension when Steve breathed soft endearments into his ear.

They would work it out together.

Tony had the best incentive to make this work. Because now that he knew what it could be like to be with Steve — losing that was not an option.


End file.
